
.E?5 



OPO 



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^S^T^V^ 




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SPEECHES, MESSAGES, 



AND 



OTHER WRITINGS 



OF THE 



Hon. albert a. BROWN, 



A SENATOR IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI. 



EDITED BY 



M. W. GLUSKEY, 

POST-MASTER TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



f 








PHILADELPHIA: 
JAS. B. SMITH & CO., 610 CHESTNUT STREET. 

1859. 



E 



,l"7 



.3«^ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, 

M. W. CLUSKEY, 

In the Clerk's OfiBce of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



The publishers of this compilation, with commendable 
enterprise, having determined to reproduce in an accessible 
form, the speeches and writings of such of the public men of 
the country as are of sufficient merit to justify republication, 
present this as the initial volume of the series which they 
hope in a reasonable time to introduce to the public. They 
have honored the compiler with the position of Editor of this 
new work. He hopes that the manner in which he has thus 
far discharged the trust, will justify the public in commending 
the selection of him for that duty. He congratulates himself 
that the speeches and writings of Albert G. Brown should 
form the beginning of his labor in this connexion. Having 
been a constant observer and admirer of the long and consist- 
ent public career of Governor Brown, it afforded him a plea- 
sure to be engaged in bringing before the country a compilation 
of his able and instructive political speeches and writings. 
The reflection that the subject of a work of this kind possesses 
true merit, naturally tends to ease the labor of preparing and 

(3) 



4 

iv EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

bringing it forth. The contents of this compilation constitute 
a monument of the mind of him whose productions it contains. 
It cannot fail to insure a ready endorsement by the country 
of the enterprise of the publishers. 

To the people of Mississippi, who have long honored Albert 
G. Brown, and whom he has so amply repaid by the faithful 
discharge of every public trust confided to him, the Editor 
would respectfully dedicate this volume. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MR. BROWN, by the Editor ... 5 

NATIONAL BANK — Report in House of Representatives of Mississippi, made 
January 24, 1838, from the committee to whom was referred so much of 
the Governor's Message as relates to a National Bank .... 19 

VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION— Speech in House of Representatives, 
April 17, 1840, in Committee of the Whole on the general appropriation 



OT 



bill . , . . • -/ 

FEES OF UNITED STATES MARSHALS AND CLERKS — Remarks in 
House of Representatives, February 22, 1841, in Committee of the Whole 
on the general appropriation bill ........ 48 

ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF MISSISSIPPI, previous to the guberna- 
torial election in 1843 50 

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, delivered January 10, 1844, before a joint 

meeting of the two houses of the Mississippi Legislature ... 55 

ANNUAL MESSAGE AS GOVERNOR OF MISSISSIPPI, communicated 

to the Legislature January 6, 1846 ....... 66 

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, upon the commencement of his second 
term as Governor, delivered January 11, 1846, before the two Houses of 
the Mississippi Legislature 87 

FIRST THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION IN MISSISSIPPI . . 91 

LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE AS GOVERNOR OF MISSISSIPPI . . 92 

THE WAR WITH MEXICO— Speech in the House of Representatives, Feb- 
ruary 10, 1848, in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, 
on the bill to authorize a loan not exceeding eighteen million five hun- 
dred thousand dollars 105 

BOUNTY LAND BILL— Speech in the House of Representatives, May 8, 

1848 119 

EXTRA PRINTED DOCUMENTS— Speech in the House of Representatives, 

May 8, 1848, on tlie distributiou of extra printed documents . . 124 

TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT FOR OREGON— Remarks in the House 

of Representatives, May 29, 1848 128 

GOVERNMENT OP THE TERRITORIES— Remarks in House of Represen- 
tatives, June 3, 1848 129 

SLAVERY NO INCREASE OF THE POLITICAL POWER OF THE 

SOUTH 141 



It contents. 

PAGE 

ANTONIO PACHECO— Speech in House of Representatives, December 29, 

1848, on the bill making provision for paying the heirs of . . . 143 

SLAVE TRADE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA— Speech in House 

of Representatives, January 31, 1849 145 

NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA— Speech in House of Representatives 
on the proposition of Mr. Preston, of Virginia, to admit New Mexico 
and California as states .......'. 149 

LOUIS KOSSUTH— Speech in House of Representatives, January 2, 1850, on 

the reception of Louis Kossuth ........ 161 

THE SLAVE QUESTION— Speech in House of Representatives, January 

30, 1850 '. . 162 

SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY— Speech in the House of Representatives, 
February 12, 1850, dissenting from certain views presented to the 
Senate by Mr. Cass 177 

LETTER TO HIS CONS,TITUENTS 178 

ADMISSION OF CALIFORNIA— Speech in the House of Representatives, 

June 13, 1850 190 

DELEGATE FROM NEW MEXICO— Speech in the House of Representa- 
tives, July 19, 1850, on the admission of the delegate from New Mexico 
in advance of her territorial organization 192 

HOMESTEADS— Speech in the House of Representatives, July 26, 1850 . 194 

TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO- Speech in the House of Representatives, 
August 8, 1850, on President Fillmore's message concerning the Texan 
boundary 200 

SLAVERY QUESTION— Speech in the House of Representatives, August 29, 

1850 208 

THE EWING INVESTIGATION— Speech in the House of Representatives, 
September 11, 1850, on the report of the Select Committee appointed 
April 22, 1850, to examine into certain official acts of Thomas Ewing, 
late Secretary of the Interior 215 

THE OTHER SIDE OF "THE TRUE ISSUE STATED"— A pamphlet 
written by the Hon. Albert G. Brown upon the subject of the Compro- 
mise Measures of 1850 .......... 233 

SPEECH — Delivered at EUwood Springs, near Port Gibson, Miss., November 

2, 1850 246 

THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT— MISSISSIPPI POLITICS— Speech in 
the House of Representatives, March 14, 1852, on the Southern Move- 
ment and Mississippi politics ........ 261 

MISSISSIPPI POLITICS— Speech in reply to his colleague, Hon. John D. 
Freeman, on the state of parties in Mississippi. Delivered in the 
House of Representatives, March 30, 1852 ...... 273 

PUBLIC PRINTING— Speech in the House of Representatives, April 13 and 
14, 1852, on the subject of the public printing, and against the action 
of the joint committee in taking it from the contractor and dividing it 
between the " Union" and the " Republic" newspapers . . . 289 

HOMESTEADS— Speech in the House of Representatives, April 28, 1852, 
on the Homestead bill, and in vindication of the policy of providing 
homes for the homeless on the public lands ...... 304 

RIVERS AND HARBORS- Speech, under the five minute rule, in the House 
of Representatives, July 23, 1852, on the subject of river and harbor 
improvements .... ....... 316 



CONTENTS. V 

FAQE 

GENERAL COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS— Speech in the House of Represen- 
tatives, December 20, 1852, on the proposition to establish a general 
committee on claims .......... 318 

CUBA— Remarks in the House of Representatives, January 3, 1853, on the 

Cuba question ........... 321 

NEBRASKA AND KANSAS— Speech in the Senate of the United States, 

February 24, 1854, on bill to organize territories of ... . 329 

INDIGENT INSANE BILL— Speech in the United States Senate, March 2, 

1854, on the 344 

PRESIDENT PIERCE'S VETO MESSAGE OF THE INDIGENT INSANE 
BILL — Speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, May 17, 
1854, on the President's Veto Message, and in defence of the bill making 
a grant of land to the several States for the benefit of the indigent insane 352 

ALIEN SUFFRAGE— Speech in the Senate of the United States, May 25, 
1854, on the question of alien suffrage, in connection with the Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill 369 

THE KANSAS BILL— Concluding Remarks on the Kansas Bill, in the 

Senate, May 25, 1854 373 

ALIEN SUFFRAGE— Speech in the Senate, July 10, 1854, on alien suffrage 375 

GRADUATION BILL— Remarks in the Senate of the United States, July 20, 

1854, on the Graduation Bill of Mr. Hunter of Virginia . . . 378 

JOINT COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS— Speech in the Senate of the United 
States, December 19, 1854, on his proposition to establish a joint com- 
mittee on claims 383 

PRIVATEER BRIG GENERAL ARMSTRONG— Speech in the Senate of 
the United States, January 26, 1855, on the claim of the owners of the 
privateer brig General Armstrong, destroyed in the port of Fayal, Portu- 
gal, in violation of the neutrality of that port 392 

LETTER AGAINST KNOW-NOTHINGISM 394 

NAVAL RETIRING BOARD— Speech in the Senate of the United States, 

January 2, 1856, on the action of the Naval Retiring Board . . . 403 

BADGER AMENDMENT— Speech in the Senate of the United States, March 

20, 1854, on the Badger Amendment 415 

AMERICAN FLAG IN MEXICO— Speech in the Senate of the United 
States, .January 7, 1856, on the claims of General John A. Quitman to 
the honor of having raised the first American flag in Mexico . . 418 

OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND— Speech in the Senate, March 11, 

1856 423 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA— Speech in the Senate of the United States, April 

25, 1856, on the jurisdiction of Congress over the District of Columbia . 451 

ADMISSION OF KANSAS— Speech in the Senate of the United States, April 

28, 1856 455 

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS— Speech in the Senate, May 6, 1856, on the 

subject of internal improvements by the general government . . 470 

THE SLAVERY QUESTION— Speech delivered in the Senate of the United 

States, December 22, 1856 475 

THE RHODE ISLAND RESOLUTIONS ON THE SUxAINER ASSAULT— 
Speech in the Senate of the United States, June 16, 1856, on the resolu- 
tions of the Legislature of Rhode Island, relative to the assault on Mr. 
Sumner 502 

PERSONAL EXPLANATION— Remarks in the Senate, March 20, 1858 . 506 



vi CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

COMMODORE PAULDING'S ARREST OF WALKER— Speech in the 

Senate of the United States, January 7, 1858, on the President's Message 
relative to the arrest of William Walker .... . 508 

INCREASE OF THE ARMY— Speech in the Senate of the United States, 
February 1, 1855, in favor of an increase of the Military Department, to 
put down Indian hostilities in the West 521 

ADMISSION OF MINNESOTA— Speech in the Senate of the United States, ■ 

February 1, 1858, on the admission of Minnesota as a state . . 528 

ADMISSION OF KANSAS— Speech in the Senate, February 3 and 4, 1858, 

on the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution . . 536 

MINNESOTA SENATORS— Speech in the Senate of the United States, Feb- 
ruary 25, 1858, on the proposition to swear in Messrs. Shields and Rice, 
senators from Minnesota, elected previous to her admission as a state 
into the Union 570 

REPRESENTATION OF MINNESOTA— Speech in the Senate, March 29, 

1858, on the representation of Minnesota in the Senate and House . 571 

ALIEN SUFFRAGE— Speeeh in the Senate of the United States, April 7, 

1858, on Indian and alien suffrage in connection with the admission of 
Minnesota 573 

ENGLISH BILL— Speech in the Senate of the United States, April 29, 1858, 
on what is commonly known as the English Bill, or the report of the 
Committee of Conference on the disagreeing votes of the two houses on 
the admission of Kansas into the Union ...... 576 

ADMISSION OF OREGON— Speech _ in the Senate, May 6, 1858, on the 

admission of Oregon into the Union ....... 581 

INCREASE OF THE NAVY— Speech in the Senate of the United States, 

June 7, 1858, on the increase of the Navy 582 

FRANKING PRIVILEGE— Speech in the Senate of the United States, June 

14, 1858, on the abolition of the franking privilege .... 585 

SPEECH delivered at Hazlehurst, Miss., on the 11th of September, 1848 . 588 

PACIFIC RAILROAD— Speech in the Senate of the United States, January 

20, 1859, on the Pacific Railroad ".599 

GRANT OF LAND TO THE SEVERAL STATES FOR AGRICULTURAL 

COLLEGES— Speech in the Senate of the United States, , 1859, 

on the House Bill making grants of lands to the states for Agricultural 
Colleges . . 602 

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES— Speech in the Senate, February 23, 

1859, on the question of slavery in the territories . , , . 604 



ERRATUM— Page 521, 16th line from foot, for 1858, read 1855. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.* 

Albert G. Brown was born in Chester District, S. C, May 31, 
1813, and is the second son of Joseph Brown, a respectable planter, 
who settled in what is now Copiah county, in the state of Mississippi, 
in the winter of 1823. The country was then a wilderness. The white 
man had not yet taken possession of the "new purchase," and the fire 
of the red man was at that time smoking, so recent had been his exit 
from the country. 

In indigent circumstances, Joseph Brown had sought this forest home, • 
contented to brave its hardships, in the hope of rearing his children to 
better fortune than his own. His two sons, Edwin and Albert, then 
small boys, performed such labor in opening the farm as they were able 
to endure. Albert, then ten years of age, was a sort of man of all 
work. It was his business to mind the stock, work a little on the farm, 
go to mill on Saturday, and attend school occasionally when there was • 
nothing else to do. 

If it should be thought by any that this was an indifferent method of 
opening the way to the boy's fortune, it must be borne in mind that 
the family was surrounded by the most trying circumstances, and the 
future promised nothing but what industry, honesty, and the most rigid 
economy might yield. Pitching his tent in the unbroken woods, not a 
tree missing from the dense forest, far from the settled parts of the 
country, without provisions, and almost without money, and not an 
acquaintance or a friend on whom he could call for help — it will be 
readily seen that the whole business and cares of the elder Mr. Brown's 
life were founded on the single word "bread." 

After the first two or three years, thanks to industry, economy, and 
a fertile soil, hard fortune began to relax her iron- grasp. Well-stored 
granaries, sleek herds of cattle, fat hogs and horses, attested the thrift 
which followed on the heels of retreating poverty. About this time 
attention was given to Albert's strong inclination for books, and he was 
kept pretty steadily at such inferior neighborhood schools as may be 
found in a frontier country — that is, barring the interruptions which 



* This biographical sketch was published in the Democratic Review in 1849, with 
the exception of the record of his life since that time, it being from the pen of the 
editor of this compilation. 

(5) 



6 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

going to mill and working on the farm in times of great need would 
occasionally interpose. 

In February, 1829, having made tolerable proficiency in the rudi- 
ments of an English education, and given evidence of sprightliness, his 
father consented, with as much readiness as was consistent with his 
limrted means, to send him to Mississippi College, then a respectable 
school, under the management of that excellent man and pure Christian, 
the Rev. D. Comfort. Here he remained three years, endearing him- 
self to a large circle of class and school mates, almost all of whom have 
since been his fastest and truest friends, and winning the confidence 
and affection of his venerable teacher, who still survives to witness the 
success of his pupil, and to enjoy the happy consciousness that his 
parental cares and sage counsel have lifted a poor boy to distinction, 
and placed him on the highway to fame and fortune. The writer has 
often heard the subject of this notice confess with deep emotion his 
gratitude to his old preceptor, and declare that to him he owed, in a 
great measure, whatever of success had attended him through life. From 
Mr. Comfort's school, young Brown was transferred, in the winter of 
1832, to Jefferson College, where he remained six months — when, 
becoming dissatisfied with the institution, he left it and went home, 
under a partial promise from his father to send him for a regular 
collegiate course to Princeton or Yale. But, after counting the cost, 
and making allowance for the care of a then rather numerous family 
of sons and daughters, Mr. Brown (the father) concluded that he should 
be unable to send his son to college. Thus closed the school-boy days 
of Albert G. Brown. With an education very imperfect, suddenly dis- 
appointed in his cherished hope of prosecuting his studies in one of the 
old schools, he was, at the early age of nineteen years, left to select 
his future course. This was a critical period, and few young men thus 
suddenly crossed and thrown back upon their own resources would have 
behaved better. Mr. Brown, not entirely desponding, but greatly 
chagrined at being thus cut oif with an education scarcely commenced, 
went of his own choice to the county village, Gallatin, entered into an 
arrangement with a lawyer of high standing (E. G. Peyton, Esq.), and 
the next day began the study of the law. In less than a year, he was 
examined before the Supreme Court of Mississippi, and admitted to the 
bar, with appropriate evidences of his qualifications. Though closely 
pursuing his studies, Mr. Brown found ample time in his hours of 
recreation to extend his acquaintance among the people, and by his 
bland and courteous deportment to lay deep and solid the foundation 
^ of that singular personal popularity, which no change of parties or 
political convulsion has ever shaken. 

During his six months' stay at Jefferson College, previously men- 
tioned, he underwent a course of military training; and, recommended 
by this circumstance, the people of his county attested their confidence 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



in him by electing him a colonel of militia before he was nineteen years 
old. This was the first office he ever held. The next year he was 
chosen a brigadier-general of militia. 

Mr. Brown was scarcely twenty years of age when he applied for 
admission to the bar, and the writer has heard him speak of his extreme 
anxiety, lest the usual question (where there can be any doubt)—" are 
you twenty-one?" should be propounded. This was the only question 
to which he could not have given a satisfactory answer, and by singular 
good fortune (for him) it was not asked. 

He began the practice of his profession in the autumn of 1833, and 
succeeded at once. He took rank with the oldest and most distin- 
guished professional gentlemen at the bar where he practised. His 
business steadily and rapidly increased to 1839, when he withdrew from 
the profession to accept a seat in Congress, in the enjoyment of the ful- 
lest and most lucrative practice, being professionally employed in nearly 
five hundred causes during the year in which he retired from the bar. 

In October, 1835, Mr. Brown (or General Brown, by which title he 
was then better known) was married to Elizabeth Frances Taliaferro, 
a Virginia lady of accomplishments, of great personal worth, and of 
excellent family. She survived the marriage only about five months. 
Her family have subsequently been among the most steadfast of General 
Brown's numerous friends and supporters. 

In this year, 1835, began the political career of General Brown. At 
the November election, he was chosen a representative to the State 
Legislature, to fill the first vacancy occurring after he was twenty-one 
years old. It was an interesting period in the legislation of Mississippi, 
and there was great competition for the seats. In 1835, Copiah, the 
county of Mr. Brown's residence, was entitled to three representatives, 
and he was one of nine candidates, nearly all Democrats, or, as they 
were called, "Jackson men." Great pains were taken to defeat him, 
as the aspiring and ambitious thought he would be in their way on 
future occasions. Some maintained that he was too young, but the 
great bulk of the opposition rested upon an alleged unsoundness in his 
political views. For this charge there was no better foundation than 
that General Brown's father was a Whig, or, as he was not ashamed 
to call himself, a Federalist of the old school. The election transpired, 
and General Brown was successful, being the second successful candi- 
date, and leading his next highest competitor about seventy-five votes. 
His representative duties were discharged with marked fidelity, and so 
entirely to the satisfaction of his constituents, that at the next election 
he was returned without a struggle, the opposition being only nominal. 
He took an active and leading part in the debates, and in all the business 
of legislation ; and before the expiration of his first term, the speakership 
having been vacated by the indisposition of the presiding officer of the 
house, he was chosen speaker pro tern., by acclamation. It is to be 



8 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

regretted that the debates in the Legislature of Mississippi at that 
period were not preserved, as thej were intrinsically valuable, and, if 
now in existence, would throw a flood of light on the political history 
of the state. A record of these debates would exhibit, in relief, 
admirable and bold, the political forecast of General Brown. Though 
almost the youngest member of the house, he counselled his more aged 
compeers in many an earnest speech against that system of banking 
which has since rendered the financial policy of Mississippi so remark- 
able throughout the world. 

General Brown took his seat in the Legislature under his second 
election in January, 1838. The banking system had already given 
way, and was tottering to its fall. Just then, Governor Lynch, the 
first and last Whig governor of Mississippi, recommended the Legisla- 
ture "to express its opinion on the subject of a National Bank," and 
entered himself into an elaborate argument in favor of that institution. 
This recommendation was referred to a committee, of which General 
Brown was chairman, and his report contains many strong views in 
opposition to the bank, both on the ground of unconstitutionality and 
of its inexpediency. We have only room for one or two short extracts, 
as follows : — 



" Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the court, in the celebrated 
case of McCullough against the state of Maryland, lays down the principle in broad 
terms, ' That when the law is not prohibited, and is intended to carry into effect any 
power intrusted to the government, Congress is to be the exclusive judge of the degree 
of its necessity.' Suppose this to be the settled doctrine upon this subject, the aboli- 
tion of slavery is not expressly prohibited in the District of Columbia, nor any of the 
states where it exists, and among the enumerated powers of the general government, 
is one authorizing it to provide for the common defence and general welfare. Suit- 
pose then that the Abolitionists of the North, whose strength, disguise it as you will, 
is increasing with frightful rapidity, should, under this rule of construction adopted 
by jurists, and sanctioned by politicians, insist that in all cases it was their duty to 
provide for the 'general welfare,' in obedience to the power given them, and that to 
carry into effect this specific grant of power, if it was ' necessary' to abolish slavery 
in the District of Columbia, and the states where it exists — we ask, whether it might 
not be competent for them to do so, or how this case is distinguished from the one 
immediately under consideration, to wit, the power to charter a National Bank, 
because it is a measure ' necessary' for the ' general welfare ;' and if the Supreme 
Court thought it incompetent for them to inquire into the degree of necessity involved 
in the first case, could they undertake to make the inquiry in the latter? We think 
not. Again, suppose the nation, in the present enfeebled state of its treasury, be 
suddenly involved in a conflict with Great Britain, or some other foreign power, 
Congress is called upon to furnish money to carry on the war ; this she refuses to 
do, by levying a direct tax which shall bear equally upon all portions of the United 
States, — but incorporates a company, and invests them with exclusive power to navi- 
gate the Mississippi river for fifty years, in consideration that the company will pay 
the Government a bonus of twenty-five millions of money. The power to have such 
action on the part of the general government is well questioned ; it is not, however, 
expressly prohibited, and Congress asserts that it is 'necessary' in providing for the 
'common defence and general welfare' to charter said company, and invest them 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 9 

with such powers, for the consideration of the twenty-five million bonus ; and the 
Supreme Court, if appealed to, says, Congress is to be the judge of the necessity, and 
we will not interfere. 

" We ask if such rules of construction, with such arguments to sustain them, may 
not, indeed if they are not likely to lead to the most disastrous consequences— con- 
sequences portentous of great evil to, the rights of the states, and threatening at once 
the stability of our excellent forms of government ? Your committee are of opinion, 
that this clause of the Constitution furnishes no warrant for the establishment of a 
National Bank." 

The report continued with various other views of the constitutional 
question, chiefly in answer to the arguments urged by the friends of the 
bank. It set forth many and strong arguments against the expediency 
of the bank, and concluded as follows : — 

" If, then, it does not render the labor of the citizens more valuable, we are at a 
loss to discern the great advantages which the working man is to derive from its 
creation. But we are satisfied of its effects, when the redundancy of paper money 
which it circulates has swelled in a twofold relation the value of every horse, plough, 
harrow, and other articles of husbandry or family consumption which the laborer 
buys. Then we find it is an institution which, instead of lightening the poor man's 
toils, in fact levies a heavy contribution upon the wages of his industry. It is an 
institution which makes the weak weaker, and the potent more powerful ; ever filching 
from the poor man's hand to replenish the rich man's purse. Your committee have 
mistaken the duties of legislators, if it is their province to guard over the peculiar 
interest of the speculator and gambler, who live by the patronage of banks, to the 
detriment and ruin of the honest yeomen, whose toils have raised our happy republic 
from a few dependent colonies, to the highest pinnacle of national fame, causing 
Indian wigwams to give place to splendid cities, and the whole wilderness to bloom 
and blossom as the rose. It is well said that ' the laborer is worthy of his hire ;' and 
the illustrious Burke never uttered a sentiment which better deserved to be embalmed 
in the hearts of freemen, than that the workingman should feel the wages of his 
labor in his pocket, and hear it jingle. 

" In conclusion, we recommend, as an expression of this body on the subject of a 
National Bank, the adoption of the following resolutions : — 

" 1. Resolved, That the government of the United States has no constitutional 
right to charter a National Bank. 

"2. Resolved, That it is inexpedient and improper to charter such an institution 
at this time, even if Congress had the constitutional right to do so." 

This report elicited the warmest commendation on the part of the 
anti-bank press and party, whilst all the bank interests assailed it with 
denunciation, attempts at ridicule, and occasionally with something like 
argument. It was extensively published at the time, and is believed to 
have had a salutary influence in awakening public inquiry on the sub- 
ject in Mississippi. 

In the fall of the same year (1838), General Brown being absent from 
the state, the bank party took advantage of a general panic in the 
public mind, growing out of the existing pecuniary embarrassments in 
Mississippi, to get up written instructions requiring him to vote for a 
bank United States Senator, or resign. He chose tlie latter alterna- 
tive. Although, in a moment of panic, seven hundred and fifty out of 



10 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

nine hundred voters had signed these instructions, General Brown did 
not hesitate to present himself as a candidate to fill the vacancy occa- 
sioned by his own resignation. He issued a short address, from which 
we present an extract. 

" To stand in the way of a free disposition of the elective franchise by the people, 
in the selection of their representatives, I should conceive the greatest moral and 
political disgrace which could befall a republican citizen. I am a Democrat in 
practice as in principle, and it is one of the first articles in the Koran of that political 
sect, that the people should be represented by whom they will. If my services are 
no longer desired, I should cease to feel contented in the seat which has been assigned 
me by your preference. And whenever you shall determine at the ballot-box to dis- 
miss me from your service, I shall retire with a sense of pleasure, equalled only by 
the satisfaction which I experienced in entering upon it, and surpassed only by the 
gladness which I now feel, in having performed at all times as I best could the trusts 
confided to my care. I have a right to ask, in abdicating my seat in the legislature, 
that the articles of my condemnation may not be signed and sealed by the people, 
and handed over to be ratified, confirmed, and executed by my political enemies, 
before I am heard in my own defence. All I ask, is a free conference with the 
people. Come set ye down, and let us reason together," 

He at once entered upon a close and searching canvass of the county. 
The result was, his triumphal return to the Legislature by a majority 
of one hundred and fifty odd votes over his bank competitor. The 
opposition was confounded. They had counted on success as a matter 
of course. The anti-bank friends of General Brown in his own county, 
and throughout the state, were of course greatly elated at this signal 
triumph. The Democratic State Convention assembled soon after, and 
although not then twenty-five years old, he was unanimously nominated 
for Congress. The chances for success were anything but flattering. 
The Whigs had swept the state at the election previous, and the bank 
interest in Mississippi was in the zenith of its power. Not dismayed 
by these unfavorable circumstances, he entered at once upon an active 
and vigorous canvass of the whole state ; and before the election in 
November, 1839, he and his colleague, Mr. Jacob Thompson, had 
thoroughly canvassed every nook and corner of the state. Though met 
at every step by the most unscrupulous opposition ; assailed with 
vituperation and slander — with denunciation, personal and political. 
General Brown and his colleague moved steadily forward, calling the 
people together, challenging their opponents to meet them in debate, 
and carrying conviction to the mind of their auditors. The result did 
ample justice to their zeal and fidelity. The state was redeemed ; bank 
thraldom was ended. The whole Democratic ticket was elected by an 
average majority of three thousand ; General Brown leading the Con- 
gressional ticket by several hundred votes. 

He took his seat in the United States House of Representatives, 
December, 1839, being then a little over twenty-five years of age. His 
speeches while in that position compare favorably with those generally 



BIOGRAPHICA.. SKETCH. 11 

made in the lower House of Congress. He entered boldly into the 
defence of the Independent Treasury, and the other leading measures 
of the administration. His opposition to the bank, and to Whig mea- 
sures generally, was maintained with his accustomed zeal and ability. 
If we had space, we should like to make extracts from these speeches, 
and especially from one in which the policy of the administration in 
power at that time is defended and whiggery reviewed. To those 
desirous of seeing with how much zeal and ability General Brown 
defended his favorite measures at that term, we commend this speech. 
It concludes with a glowing tribute to the moral and intellectual worth 
of Mr. Calhoun, a perusal of which cannot be otherwise than gratifying 
to the numerous friends of that distinguished statesman and patriot. 

After the adjournment of Congress in 1840, General Brown went 
home, and entered immediately, and with singular activity, into the 
presidential canvass. He traversed the state, defending Mr. Van 
Buren, as the regular nominee, against the growing distrust of his peo- 
ple, and appealing to them to stand by the measures of his administra- 
tion. Many of his speeches at this time were remarkable specimens of 
stump oratory ; and though they failed to carry the state under the 
weight of Mr. Van Buren's name, they did not fail to add greatly to 
General Brown's character as a speaker. 

On the 12th of January, 1841, General Brown was a second time 
married. The lady, Miss Roberta E. Young, the youngest daughter of 
the late General Robert Young, of Alexandria, Va., had been known 
in society at Washington as one of the most fascinating and intelligent 
ladies of the gay metropolis. She has directed with great dignity and 
propriety the domestic affairs of her husband's household, and especially 
during his gubernatorial term. She is the mother of two sons. 

At the close of his term in 1841, General Brown was again put in 
nomination by his party friends. But having taken upon himself the 
cares of a family, and finding his pecuniary interests seriously involved 
from long neglect, he was constrained to decline. This he did, in the 
full confidence that his party, though temporarily defeated, were sure 
to rise at another election. He was not disappointed. The Democrats 
of Mississippi, at the November election, 1841, nobly redeemed their 
state. At this election General Brown consented to stand a poll for a 
judgeship of the Circuit Court ; and it is among the remarkable evi- 
dences of his singular popularity, that he was voted for by men of every 
shade of opinion — political, social, and religious. He was barely eligible 
to the ofiice on account of his youth ; but he was elected, beating his able 
and distinguished competitor. Judge Willis, the former incumbent of the 
same office, nearly three votes to one. He served in this position nearly 
two years, when he accepted a nomination from his political friends for 
governor, and thereupon resigned. Judge Willis was chosen his succes- 
sor. Judge Brown entered the canvass for the governorship early in the 



12 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

summer of 1843, being then just thirty years old, and consequently barely 
elif'ible under the constitution of Mississippi. The opposition was fierce 
and powerful. In addition to the whole strength of the Whig party, 
Jud^e Brown had to encounter the stern opposition of a large number 
of the most talented and influential men of his own party. The osten- 
sible reason for this opposition was a diff'erence of opinion in regard to 
the state's liability to pay a class of bonds issued in her name, and 
known as the "Union Bank Bonds." Judge Brown maintained that 
1 the bonds had been issued in violation of the state constitution, and 
that the people were therefore under no sort of obligation to pay them 
by taxation. In this contest he had two opponents— Mr. Clayton, the 
regular Whig nominee, and Colonel Williams, " the independent bond- 
paying Democrat." Both were gentlemen of high character. Mr. 
Clayton, a lawyer of distinction, belongs to the Georgia family of that 
name ; and Colonel Williams was an Ex- United States Senator from 
Mississippi. For many weeks after the canvass opened, Judge Brown's 
chances seemed desperate. Almost single handed, he encountered the 
whole opposition, Whigs and Democrats. How he bore himself, may 
be judged of from the fact that his competitors were together beaten by 
two thousand three hundred votes. He entered upon his new duties 
as governor, January 10, 1844. The bond question having been the 
principal topic of discussion in the canvass, Governor Brown availed 
himself of the privileges incident to his inauguration, to state succinctly 
his views on that subject. The reader may find it interesting to 
examine those views, which we here extract from the inaugural speech 
of the governor. 

After some general remarks upon the value of the constitution, and 
the absolute necessity for its inviolable preservation, he continues : — 

" I have been led into these reflections by the too common expression, that although 
the Constitution was manifestly violated in the issuance of the Union Bank bonds, 
yet, inasmuch as a majority of the people approved it at the time, therefore the whole 
people must submit to taxation to pay them : thus declaring that the will of the 
majority, and not the Constitution, shall be the measure of power, and virtually 
making one acknowledged wrong the pretext for committing a still more grievous 
wrong. But how, it may be asked, will the Constitution be violated in levying a tax 
to pay a debt, even though that debt Avas contracted in violation of the Constitution ? 
It has been assumed that the taxing power resides with the Legislature, and that 
, they may exercise it for any purpose within their discretion, not positively prohibited 
by the Constitution. This construction of the powers of the Legislature, is by far too 
comprehensive. Under it, the legislative department may tax ad libitum. No such 
authority, in my opinion, was ever conferred. The Legislature may rightfully tax 
the citizen to defray the economical expenses of the government, and to pay the debts 
of the state ; but it would he going far beyond the authority delegated to them to 
levy taxes to pay the debts of any one, or all the corporations within the state. ^ If 
the Union Bank bonds constituted a debt against the state, then would it be constitu- 
tional to tax the citizen to pay them ; but that these bonds do not constitute such a 
debt, will, I think, be made sufficiently manifest by a candid review of their origin, 
and of that clause of the Constitution under which they could alone issue." 



BIOGRArillCAL SKETCH. ~ 13 

He then proceeded to state the facts connected with the creation of 
the bonds in a most clear and able manner, to show that the plainest 
provisions of the state constitution had been deliberately and wilfully 
violated. That the bonds, having no legal existence, are not a debt 
against the state, and that the Legislature, if it had the will, has no 
power to levy taxes for the payment of those bonds. 

The administration of Governor Brown will be long remembered in 
Mississippi as one of the most fortunate which that state has ever had. 
With his first election ceased the " Union Bank bond" controversy, and 
he was left without hindrance to look after the other long-neglected 
and suffering interests of the state. He found the treasury bankrupt, 
and the oflficers and servants of the state paid in a kind of paper, known 
as "auditor's warrants," then at a depreciation of fifty to fifty-five 
cents on the dollar. He set himself earnestly at work to revive the 
drooping credit of the state, and had the satisfaction, at the end of two 
years, to see " auditor's warrants" at par with gold and silver; and, at 
the close of his second term, to leave a surplus of several hundred 
thousand dollars in the treasury. 

Governor Brown zealously advocated the cause of education. His 
messages, and other papers, are interspersed with reflections, sugges- 
tions, and earnest appeals on this interesting subject. Several schools 
grew up under his auspices. The common school system was adopted 
on his earnest and repeated recommendations ; but so shorn of its best 
proportions by the legislature as to be a mere caricature of the system 
recommended by him. He entered earnestly and zealously upon the 
task of establishing the State University. Under his direction the 
funds were secured, and by his advice the institution was put into 
operation. In every matter relating to the local interests or the honor 
of Mississippi, Governor Brown was a faithful guardian. So well satis- 
fied were the people of this, and indeed with his whole administration, 
that at the end of his first term all opposition had ceased, and no one 
was found to enter the list against him for another election. His 
second term, like the first, was marked by an unceasing care for the 
local interests of the state which he governed. The feature in his 
administration, which distinguished it perhaps as much as any other, 
was its constant fidelity to the payment of the " Planters' Bank bonds." 
In his first inaugural speech, after disposing of the Union Bank bond 
question, he continues : — 

" Wherever there exists a debt against the state, contracted in good faith and with 
a proper regard to the constitution, it must be discharged to the last mill. Of this 
character do I regard the bonds issued on account of the Planters' Bank ; and come 
what may, the state can never shrink from the payment of them. Let prompt and 
efficient action be taken for their settlement. A speedy liquidation of them will 
afford what every good citizen is anxious to see — a fitting opportunity to manifest to 
the world that, in rejecting the Union Bank bonds, we are actuated by no mean or 
sordid principles of dollars and cents, but by a more elevated impulse — that of 
adhering faithfully to our written constitution." 



14 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

And in his message to the Legislature, he reviewed the whole subject 
of these bonds, showing, that as they legally existed, the state would , 
never, for an instant, falter in the payment, and advised by all means 
their prompt discharge. 

And again, in 1848, in alluding to the same subject, he remarked : — 

" In estimating the indebtedness of the state, the bonds issued on account of the 
Planters' Bank have been included. My last general message conveyed to the Legis- 
lature and the country my vievrs as regards the state's liability to pay these bonds. 
These opinions have undergone no material change, but a reiteration of them is 
uncalled for, and would be unprofitable at this time. Having long since settled in 
my own mind that the state is bound, by every obligation that the constitution and 
the laws can impose, to pay the debt, it has only remained to devise some means 
acceptable to the people, and not too oppressive, by which it could be done. The 
whole subject has been calmly considered ; and however it may be regarded by others, 
there is, to my mind, but one course to be pursued worthy the character of a great 
and growing state, and that is to raise the money by taxation, and discharge the 
debt as rapidly as possible. That course is respectfully but earnestly recommended. 

Governor Brown's second term being about to expire, he accepted a 
unanimous nomination to run for Congress, in the 4th Congressional 
District ; and although it was known that his term as governor would 
not end until near the middle of January, and that he would not in 
consequence take his seat until the first two months of the session had 
passed, he was elected without opposition. He took his place in the 
House of Representatives in the latter part of January, 1849, in the 
midst of the excitement growing out of the discussions on the Mexican 
war. In the course of two or three weeks, he spoke in review of the 
conduct of the administration, and generally in defence of his own 
country. Speaking for himself and his constituents, he said : — 

"We believe the war to have been just and constitutional in its commencement; 
that it has been vigorously prosecuted thus far, for wise and proper ends ; and that 
it should be so prosecuted until we have the amplest reparation for past wrongs, and 
the fullest security that our rights as a nation are to be respected in future. To this 
end, we are prepared to vote such number of troops, and such additional sums of 
money, as, in the judgment of the commander-in-chief, may be necessary to attain 
these objects." 

In the course of a discussion on the President's proposition to tax 
tea and coffee, as a means of raising money to carry on the war, 
Governor Brown indulged in some severe but deserved criticisms on the 
conduct of the opposition, saying : — 

" When, sir, did these gentlemen first learn to sympathize with the poor man ? 
Was it at a time when they were taxing cotton cloth, leather, iron, coal, and salt? 
Was it, sir, when they were levying protective duties on these articles, all of which 
enter into the poor man's consumption ? The gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Marsh] 
pours out the fulness of his sympathetic heart over the poor man's tax on tea and 
cofiee, and then he bewails the downfall oi protection. You, sir, sympathize with the 



BIOGRArmCAL SKETCH. 15 

poor man's tax! you who would tax all the necessaries cf life to give protection to 
some overgrown manufacturer ! Strange and incomprehensible logic, that we must 
tax the poor man's hat, his shoes, his shirt, his plough, his axe — everything, in short, 
■which he consumes, for the benefit of the manufacturer ! but your sympathetic hearts 
•will not allow you tax his tea and coffee to support your government in time of war. 
You would send him shoeless, hatless, and shirtless, to cultivate his ground without 
implements, unless he pays tribute to the manufacturers ; only give him tea that is 
not taxed, and you are satisfied. You would lay his diseased body on a pallet that 
is taxed ; give him taxed medicine from a spoon that is taxed ; you give him untaxed 
tea in a cup that is taxed ; he dies, and you tax his winding sheet, and consign him 
to a grave that is dug with a spade that is taxed, and then insult his memory by say- 
ing that you gave him untaxed tea. Why, sir, if I thus outraged the poor man's 
common sense during life, insulted him in his last moments, and whined a hypocritical 
sympathy over his tomb when dead, I should expect his ghost to rise up in judgment 
against me. 

" Other gentlemen may do as they please — for me and my people, we go for our 
country. We write on our banner, 'millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute.' 
Tax our property, tax our supplies — ay, tax us millions on millions for the defence 
of our country's flag and our country's honor, and we will pay it ; but if you ask us 
to pay one cent of tribute to your lordly manufacturers, we rise up in rebellion 
against you. Take our property for the defence of our national honor, but do not 
plunder us to make a rich man more rich." 

At all times, and under all circumstances, Governor Brown has proven 
himself the steadfast friend of the toiling millions, opposing whatever 
tended to retard their prosperity, and advocating with energy every 
measure which promised to advance them intellectually or otherwise. 
In a debate on the subject of the public lands in the House, he said : — 

" I am for disposing of the public lands freely. To the soldier who fights the 
battles of his country I would give a home, nor would I restrict him to very narrow 
limits. To every man who has no home, I would give one, and, so long as he and his 
descendants choose to occupy it, they should hold it against the world, without charge 
of any kind. The government owns more than nine hundred millions of acres of 
land, and yet thousands of her citizens, and some of them her bravest and best 
soldiers, are without homes. The dependence of the government and people should 
be mutual. If government relies on the people for defence in time of war — if she 
expects them to fight her battles and win ' empires' for her, the people should expect 
in return to be provided with homes ; this reasonable expectation ought never to be 
disappointed. 

" I have no objection to the government selling lands to those who are able to pay 
for it, at a moderate price ; but I protest my disapprobation of national land-jobbing. 
The nation degrades her character when she comes down to the low occupation of 
exacting the hard-earned dollars of a poor citizen for a bit of land, purchased, it may 
have been, with the blood of that citizen's ancestors. To my mind, there is a 
national nobility in a republic's looking to the comfort, convenience, and happiness 
of its people ; there is a national meanness in a republic selling a poor man's home 
to his rich neighbor, because that neighbor can pay a better price for it." 

This and many similar extracts might be adduced to show his con- 
stant care for the interests of the masses and the great body of the 
people. But his whole life, public and private, attests his attachment 
*o the laboring man, and his ceaseless care for his prosperity and happi- 



16 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

ness. The writer once heard him asked, how it was that success had 
so constantly attended him. He replied, " I never forgot that I was 
one of the people." Ah ! there is the secret — he never forgot that he 
was one of the people. As the man of all work on his father's farm, 
as the "mill boy," he was one of the people — as a member of the 
Legislature and of Congress, he was one of the people. Electing him 
judge did not change his character ; and as governor, he was still one 
of the people. Faithful to all his pledges, frank in the expression of 
his opinion, open and decided in his course, tolerant towards his oppo- 
nents, and cordial towards his friends, it is not surprising that he has 
been the idol of his state. i^ 

Governor Brown was re-elected to the 32i^ Congress. During this 
term the exciting questions of the admission of California, and that of 
territorial governments for the other territory acquired by the Mexican 
war, engaged the consideration of Congress, and led to the enactment 
of the compromise measures of 1850. Governor Brown occupied a 
prominent place among the debaters in the House during that portentous 
time, and was decisive in his opposition to the admission of California. 
He voted against it, and all of those measures, except the fugitive slave 
law. 

Though Governor Brown desired to return to private life at the end 
of the 32d Congress, the condition of parties in Mississippi, growing 
out of the excitement which followed the enactment of the compromise 
measures of 1850, in which his representative action on those measures 
was involved, induced him to again become a candidate. He warmly 
espoused in his canvass the cause of the States Rights Democracy, and 
was the only member of the delegation in the House re-elected in the 
>?nsuing election. All the rest were candidates, but were defeated by 
what were then called Union Men. In the Mississippi state convention 
of that year, nearly every States Rights delegate in the body came 
from some portion of his district. This affords some idea of how deeply 
that cardinal doctrine of American politics is impressed upon his people. 

During the 33d Congress, Governor Brown's career in the House 
was marked by that same argus scrutiny of the measures before that 
body, which had characterized his previous incumbency. A reference 
to his speeches, embraced in this volume, made during that Congress, 
will exhibit his strict concern with reference to everything affecting the 
public interests. 

At the end of the 33d Congress, Governor Brown retired to private 
life, to resume the cares and duties of his profession. But the people 
called him immediately back to the public service. 

At the session of the Mississippi Legislature of that year, he was 
elected United States Senator, to fill a vacancy which existed on 
account of the failure of the previous Legislature to elect a successor to 
Walker Brooke, whose term had expired. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 17 

Governor Brown took his seat in the Senate on the 2(3th of January, 
1854. His experience as a legislator, and familiarity with public 
affairs, acquired by his incumbency previously of high public stations, 
at once enabled him to become a leading member of the Senate, and 
to rank amongst its most attentive business members, as well as ablest 
debaters. 

His speeches in this volume, delivered since he has been in the Senate, 
like all of his efforts, are characterized by that cogency, strength, and 
all of the other attributes which mark the perfect debater. He has 
just concluded his first term in the Senate, and is beginning a new one 
of six years, for which he has been chosen by the Legislature of his 
state. 

As a Senator, Governor Brown has been eminently national in his 
course. If to the casual observer he has sometimes appeared a little 
sectional, it must be borne in mind that he comes from the South, a 
section against which abolition has directed its batteries — and that it 
was his duty, as it was his pleasure, to defend that section. His sena- 
torial course is too recent and too fresh in the recollection of the country 
to need sketching, and we close this brief notice by directing the reader's 
attention to his speeches in the Senate, as embodied in the last half of 
this volume. 



SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



OF 



HON. ALBERT CI. BROWN. 



NATIONAL BANK. 



Report of Hon. Albert G. Brown, in the House of Representatives of Mississippi, 
made January 24th, 1838, from the committee to whom was referred so much of 
the Governor's Message as relates to a National Bank. 

Mr. Speaker : The committee to whose consideration the foregoing 
resolution was referred, have given to the subject which it involves, the 
calm and dispassionate reflection which its vast magnitude and import- 
ance requires, and have instructed me to report, as follows : 

Your committee believe from the manner in which his excellency the 
governor introduces the subject of a National Bank in his written com- 
munication to the two houses of the legislature, that he looks to it as 
part and parcel of the means of enabling " our citizens to anticipate 
another crop," and "to retain as a spring to industry a portion of the 
means now in their possession to operate upon." Such is the plain and 
palpable inference from the language employed in the message. If 
these were the only advantages or disadvantages incident to the esta- 
blishment of such an institution, your committee would not conceive it 
their duty further to investigate the subject, since " an expression of 
this body," however early or emphatic, would not, in the course of human 
probability, effectuate in any particular, the object pointed out. 

But looking beyond those immediate objects, your committee have 
thought it their duty to examine the subject more thoroughly. In doing 
this, they find it divisible into two parts, each of which they propose to 
examine in its order. First, as to the constitutional right of the general 
government, to exercise the power of erecting such an institution ; 
Secondly, as to the expediency or propriety of establishing such an 
institution at this time, and its probable effects upon state banks and 
other local interests. 

Your committee see -no reason to depart from the long-settled and 
well-established republican principle, that the government of the United 
States is one of limited delegated powers, and that it can in no case, 
with propriety, exercise any other powers, than such as have been ex- 
pressly delegated, and such others as spring incidentally out of those 

(19) 



20 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

substantively given. That witliin the sphere of its delegated powers, it 
is bound to revolve ; and whenever it shoots beyond this orb, it becomes 
^ a trespasser upon tlie rights of the states, and produces a tendency to 
consolidation, and absolute anarchy, alarming to state sovereignty, and 
at once subversive of the best interest of the American people. View- 
ing the general government, then, as one of limited authority, entitled 
to exercise only such powers as are above specified, your committee have 
searched with an anxious solicitude every line in the Constitution, to 
find some warrant for the erection of a National Bank. It is not pre- 
tended by the most zealous friends of this great measure, that the 
authority for the establishment of a National Bank, is to be found among 
the enumerated powers. The only legitimate subject of inquiry then is, 
can it be made incidental to the exercise of any specific grant of power ? 
It is proper, first, perhaps, to define the meaning of incidental powers, 
as applied to this inquiry. They are such powers alone as are absolutely 
essential and necessary to carry into effect the substantive enumerated 
powers ; as for instance, the power is expressly and especially given to 
create post-offices and post-roads ; the subject of legitimate inquiry then 
is, what are the incidental, or implied powers carried along with, and to 
be exercised by virtue of, the specific grant ? The answer is clearly and 
emphatically, — all powers necessary and proper, for carrying into full 
and complete effect this substantive power. As for instance, the power 
of appointing postmasters, letting out mail contracts, providing by law 
for the punishment of mail-robberies, and to do all other acts needful to 
be done, for the cheap, safe, and speedy transportation of the mail from 
one place to another. These are incidental powers, which, though not 
expressly enumerated, are absolutely " necessai-y for carrying into effect 
that express authority to create post-offices and post-roads," and without 
which that clause in the Constitution would ever remain a dead letter. 
Thus the power to create military schools and academies, though not 
expressly granted, is fairly incidental to the powers of declaring war, 
and providing for the common defence. If this be the correct rule for 
defining incidental powers, the next inquiry very properly is, to the 
exercise of what specific grant is the power to charter a bank incidental ? 
Here your committee find themselves launched full upon the trackless 
ocean of visionary political speculation. Whilst one class of politicians 
find ample authority for the exercise of this power, in that clause of the 
Constitution which says, that " Congress shall provide for the common 
defence and general welfare of the people of the United States ;" another 
class contend that it is incidental to the power " to regulate commerce 
amongst the several states, and with foreign nations," — and another 
asserts that the obligatory clause, requiring Congress to see that the 
revenue is collected in a uniform manner, throughout the United States, 
carries along with it, by an irresistible rule of construction, the power 
to charter banks, — whilst another, less disposed to define and particu- 
larize, argue that it is necessary to carry into effect the delegated 
powers generally. It has occurred to your committee as a subject 
worthy of some remark, that of the many parties and factions which 
advocate the cause of a National Bank, there is not one which does not 
admit, that if the general government exercise such power, it must find 
a guarantee for so doing, in the Constitution, since that government can 



NATIONAL BANK. 21 

do no act of sovereignty, other than is allowed by the terms of that 
instrument, and yet no two of them agree as to what clause affords that 
guarantee. 

Your committee have also viewed with singular emotions the wonderful 
influence of this great question over the minds of political partisans. It 
has brought together and made to harmonize, all the elements of opposi- 
tion. The lion and the lamb may well be said to have lain down 
together. The high-toned Nullifier, whose sword leaps quickly from its 
scabbard to protect his country, and to avenge even a look that threatens 
her with insult ; he whose warm blood coursed quickly through his veins 
upon the very mention of "protective tariff," and whose choler drovf> 
him almost to madness, in resisting an unconstitutional act of the general 
government, is found greeting in this great conflict, with amazing cor- 
diality, the cold calculating Federalist, who thought it exceedingly 
impious to rejoice at the success of our arms in war, and who thinks a 
tariff to protect northern manufactories, perfectly constitutional. Yes, 
sir, we find that those who believe a tariff constitutional, and those who 
believe it unconstitutional, — those who believe internal improvement by 
the general government, constitutional, and those who believe it uncon- 
stitutional, — and last, though not least, those who believe a bank con- 
stitutional, and those who believe it unconstitutional, all uniting, with a 
few honorable exceptions, in advocating a bank of the United States. 
Is it for the cause of the bank that all this is done ? No ! It is for 
that other purpose of destroying the existing administration, and bring- 
ing it into disrepute among the people. It surely never can be said that 
a party who, but a little while ago, were ready to resist " peaceably if 
they could, forcibly if they must," an unconstitutional act on the part 
of the general government, are now, for the mere love of gold, ready to 
commit what most of them believe, or profess to believe, a still greater 
infraction upon that Constitution ? No ! We are unwilling to believe 
it; the fountain of this outpouring in favor of a National Bank will be 
found in an anxious longing after power — a power which can only be 
attained in the downfall of the present administration. 

Your committee, with an anxious desire to arrive at correct conclusions 
upon this interesting subject, have made diligent inquiry into the reasons 
by which different politicians attempt to sustain themselves in deriving 
power from the Constitution to charter a National Bank. The result of 
their inquiries they respectfully submit to the consideration of this 
House. 

First, As to those claiming under that broad power of providing for 
the common good, &c., which, like the mantle of charity, is found to 
cover a multitude of political sins, your committee have heard the opinion 
advanced by jurists, and sanctioned by politicians, that Congress, so 
long as it exercises no powers that have been expressly prohibited, and 
keeps in view the exercise of its delegated functions, is to be the exclu- 
sive judge of its own powers. Indeed, Chief Justice Marshall, in de- 
livering the opinion of the court, in the celebrated case of McCullough 
against the state of Mar3'land, lays down the principle in broad terms, 
" That when the law is not prohibited, and is intended to carry into 
effect any power intrusted to the Government, Congi'ess is to be the 
exclusive judges of the degree of its necessity.' Suppose this to be the 



22 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

settled doctrine upon this subject, and your committee will not he so 
arrogant as to question its rectitude ; the abolition of slavery is not 
expressly prohibited in the District of Columbia, nor in any of the states 
where it exists, and among the enumerated powers of the general 
government, is one authorizing it to provide for the common defence 
and general welfare. Suppose then that the Abolitionists of the North, 
whose strength, disguise it as you will, is increasing with frightful 
rapidity, should, under this rule of construction adopted by jurists, and 
sanctioned by politicians, insist that in all cases, it was their duty to pro- 
vide for the "general welfare," in obedience to the power given them, 
and that to carry into effect this specific grant of power, it was " neces- 
sary" to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and the states 
where it exists. We ask whether it might not be competent for them 
to do so, or how this case is distinguished from the one immediately 
under consideration, to wit : the power to charter a National Bank, 
because it is a measure "necessary" for the "general welfare;" and if 
the Supreme Court thought it incompetent for them to inquire into the 
degree of necessity involved in the first case, could they undertake to 
make the inquiry in the latter ? We think not. Again, suppose the 
nation, in the present enfeebled state of its treasury, be suddenly involved 
in a conflict with Great Britain, or some other foreign power, Congress 
is called upon to furnish money to carry on the war ; this she refuses to 
do by levying a direct tax which shall bear equally upon all portions of 
the United States, — but incorporates a company, and invests them with 
exclusive power to navigate the Mississippi river for fifty years, in con- 
sideration that that company will pay the Government a bonus of tAventy- 
five millions of money. The power to have such action on the part of 
the general government, is well questioned ; it is not however expressly 
prohibited, and Congress asserts that it is "necessary" in providing for 
tlie "common defence and general welfare" to charter said company, 
and invest them with such powers, for the consideration of the twenty- 
five million l>onus, and the Supreme Court, if appealed to, says, Con- 
gress is to be the judge of the necessity, and we will not interfere. 

We ask if such rules of construction, with such arguments to sustain 
them, may not, indeed if they are not likely to lead to the most dis- 
astrous consequences — consequences portentous of great evil to the rights 
of the states, and threatening at once the stability of our excellent 
forms of government ? Your committee are of opinion, that this clause 
of the Constitution, furnishes no warrant for the establishnaent of a 
National Bank. 

The second inquiry is, as to the measure of power conferred by that 
clause of the Constitution, delegating authority to the general govern- 
ment, to regulate commerce between the states, and how far a " National 
Bank is necessary and proper" to the perfection of this power. 

What is meant by regulating commerce between the states and 
foreign nations, in the sense of the Constitution, is a subject of inquiry, 
properly engaging the attention of your committee. There is an essen- 
tial diflference, we think, between the means of carrying on commerce, 
and the regulation of commerce. If, instead of saying that Congress 
might pass laws regulating commerce among the several states and 
foreign nations, the Constitution had declared that Congress should have 



NATIONAL BANK. 23 

power to furnish the means of carrying on commerce between the states, 
&c., then we think the advocates of a National Bank might well have 
pointed to that provision, as affording the strongest guarantee for the 
action which they propose to have. The facilities in the shape of ex- 
changes, bank notes, &c., which an institution of this kind is capable of 
affording, may well be regarded as a convenient means of carrying on 
trade. But how these facilities can be regarded as regulating commerce, 
we are at a loss to determine. We have accustomed ourselves to regard 
this as a government in which the equality of human rights was 
respected. If we are correct in this, we do not readily perceive how it 
is that the commercial part of our citizens can justly claim at the hands 
of the government a degree of assistance in their business, which is not 
extended to those engaged in other pursuits. Money, it will readily be 
admitted, is the article by which the merchant carries on his trade — 
lawyers carry on theirs with books — the farmer or mechanic, his with 
tools and utensils of various kinds. The merchant is claiming; of the 
government, that it should afford him the cheapest and most convenient 
method of conveying his money to the place where he intends using it. 
But at the same time, he, no doubt, would think it a monstrous exaction 
if the lawyer, the farmer, or the mechanic, should each claim the same 
assistance, and demand the right to have the means afforded him by the 
government of conveying in the cheapest, most speedy, and convenient 
manner, the implements of his trade from one place to another, wherever 
he may chance to need them. And yet, if this is a government of equal 
rights, we do not perceive the reasons which render one of these demands 
more unwarrantable than the other. The opinion that Congress should 
regulate exchanges, is of recent origin. In the early establishment of 
the Bank of the United States, its friends urged incidentally the advan- 
tages it would afford as a cheap and convenient medium of exchange. 
But they urged this as argument, merely why the government should 
exercise the power elsewhere given it, to charter a bank, and not as 
affording of itself that power. By regulating commerce between the 
states and foreign nations, your committee understand nothing more to 
be meant, than that the wdiole power is surrendered to the general 
government of establishing ports of entry, providing by law what vessels 
may enter them, and under what legal restrictions, and generally to 
protect the commerce of all the states alike, and to see that one state 
does not conduct its commerce with any foreign power on terms detri- 
mental to the interests of another. If anything more than this is meant, 
we are unable to determine what it is. 

The third subject claiming attention, is that clause in the Constitution 
which provides for collecting duties, imposts, and excises in a uniform 
manner throughout the United States. It is contended, that under this 
clause a National Bank can and ought to be chartered. Your committee 
are of a different opinion, — the assertion is evidently based upon the 
assumption that it is wholly impracticable to collect the revenue in any- 
thing else than a paper currency. If the premises are yielded, the 
reasoning may follow. But are the premises founded in reason and 
good conscience, according to the spirit of the Constitution ? We think 
not. The framers of the Constitution have not done their work by 
halves ; wherever it is made the duty of government to do a particular 



24 ALBERT G. BROWN 

act, the means are afforded to effect that act, fully, perfectly, and 
entirely. Hence, the power of coining money, and regulating the value 
thereof, is conferred upon the general government, to enable it to carry 
into effect that other clause, which requires it to collect duties, imposts, 
&c., in a "uniform manner." Else how could they do it? Taxes are 
to he collected in dollars and cents ; and if Virginia made dollars to con- 
sist of seventy-five cents, New York of eighty, and Massachusetts of 
sixty-eight and three-fourth cents, as might probably have been the case, 
if the whole power of coining and regulating the value of money had not 
been surrendered to the general government ; and under this state of 
affiirs, with coin thus adulterated, it would have created as much 
embarrassment to the general government, to collect its revenue, &c., in 
a uniform manner, as it would thus be collected in the notes of local 
banks, at present depreciated to greater and less amounts in every state 
in the Union. Your committee do not hesitate to pronounce, that the 
, means of collecting the public dues is clearly pointed out by the Con- 
stitution. 

Besides, your committee are of opinion, that the Constitution never 
contemplated that the general government should oblige itself to receive, 
in payment of its dues, an article which it could not offer in discharge 
of its liabilities. It would be a monstrous construction of the Constitu- 
tion, to say that the general government might properly force bank-bills 
upon a creditor in discharge of a debt ! No such power is yet claimed 
by that government, certainly none such was ever given. 

Your committee, upon a full and impartial investigation of this whole 
subject, can find in the Constitution no warrant for the erection of such 
an institution. Precedent gives it the strongest claim which it has upon 
^ your attention ; but precedent is not law, much less can it be made to 
alter or amend the Constitution. So far, however, as precedent goes, 
we are willing it should have its due weight ; it is ground, however, upon 
which the advocates of a National Bank should lightly tread. The 
opponents of the bank can show five precedents against it where its 
friends can show one in its favor. One Congress in 1791 decided in 
favor of a bank, and another in 1811 decided against it ; one Congress 
in 1815 decided against a bank, and another in 1816 in its favor ; again, 
in 1832, 1834, and in 1837, Congress successively decided against the 
measure. The precedents in the national councils are, therefore, more 
than two to one against it. 

If, then, we refer to state legislatures, and to the decision of state 
courts, the precedents, so far as they go, are as four to one. So far 
then as precedent is concerned, we think there can be nothing found 
which militates in favor of a bank. The mere fact of a National Bank 
having existed for four-fifths of the time, since the organization of the 
government, carries with it but little force, when urged as evidence that 
the people have, during that time, acquiesced in its establishment, if we 
reflect that it lias only been at the expiration of each charter that the 
people have been favored with an opportunity of expressing their views 
as to its expediency or constitutionality. There is no means of ascer- 
taining whether the people, during that time, accjuiesced in its creation 
or existence, since all means of giving expression to their sentiments was 
denied by the terms of its charter, which for each successive term con- 



NATIONAL BANK. 25 

tinued for twenty years. It is urged as a further argument in favor of 
a bank, that General Washington sanctioned it in 1791 ; but it will be 
recollected, that at that time the tenth article of the amendment to the 
Constitution, restricting the general government in its action, and 
specially declaring that all powers not delegated are reserved to the 
states respectively, or to the people, was not adopted. The line between 
the sovereignty of the states and national government was not distinctly 
drawn, and the rights of the states were not at that period regarded 
with the same jealous eye as at present. And it was the encroachments 
of the general government upon the rights of the states, in the nature 
of federal alien and sedition laws, that first aroused the fears of the 
states for their reserved rights, and caused them to make the express 
declaration contained in the tenth section. What General Washington 
would have done after the adoption of that section, must ever remain a 
matter of doubt. But if his general devotion to the rights of the people 
afford any criterion, we may reasonably infer that he never would have 
yielded his assent to such a measure. Your committee, having thus 
embodied their opinions upon this division of the subject, will submit 
briefly their views upon the second point : to wit, as to the expediency 
or propriety of establishing such an institution at this time, and its 
probable effects upon state banks and local interests. Banks are not 
money, nor is the paper which they issue a safe substitute for money, 
any further than it represents coin, into which it may be converted at 
the will of the holder. The first care then of those who incorporate 
banks, should be to inquire from what source is the money to be derived, 
with which we propose to fill the vaults and enable it to commence the 
process of issuing ? 

Perhaps we are told that this stock will readily sell in a foreign 
market. But we hear a thousand voices from every point of the compass 
answering, No ! No ! We want no foreign subject fattening on our labor, 
and controlling Avith his money our politics in peace, and our commerce 
in peace and in war. The indignant voice of the American people has 
been too often raised against this monstrous scheme, any longer to per- 
mit a lingering hope that they may ever sanction it. How then are we 
to obtain the capital ? Our citizens will unhesitatingly buy the stock, 
but by what means are they to pay for it ? Certainly not in the notes 
of local banks, they form no basis upon which a national bank would 
dare to issue. You must force them to resume specie payment, to enable 
your stockholders to convert the paper (with which they propose to pay 
their stock) into specie, and thereby drive them to bankruptcy, or allow 
the stock to remain unpaid. For we hold it to be absolutely certain, 
that the local banks never would, unless driven to it, attempt so rash an 
act as the resumption of specie payment, whilst thousands of hungry 
expectants waited at their doors, ready to rush in and devour their little 
substance ; and if driven to it, is there not great danger, that finding 
themselves thwarted in their calculations, that many of them who might 
be able, by prudent conduct, to discharge all their liabilities, would 
venture upon the desperate expedient of confessing their bankruptcy, 
dividing the spoil, and saying to anxious creditors, " go your way, we 
have not wherewith to relieve your demand." If these thoughts are 
entitled to any consideration, we think they afford some reason why we 



2G ALBERT G. BROWN. 

should not be too hasty in calling into existence a creature like this, 
"which can only live by feasting on our substance. But by what other 
means can it affect our real interests? We reply, that whilst it does not 
add to the value of our great staple, it does, by augmenting the amount 
of an article called paper money, increase the price of every article of 
domestic consumption. 

Does a proposition so clear as this need reason to elucidate it, or 
argument to sustain it ? We assert that the charter of a National Bank 
does not increase the value of cotton ; all experience proves that this 
great article of commerce is not regulate.d by the existence of banks, 
but by the demand for it, by those who fabricate it into cloth and other 
things. If we see a remarkable rise in the price of cotton, we are apt 
to inquire the cause ; the answers, be they ever so numerous, at length 
resolve themselves into one, plain and simple ; the demand is greater now 
than it was before. Hence, we find that in 1827, '28, '29, and "30, 
when the bank was in the fullest tide of its operation, cotton was worth 
seven pence (equal to twelve cents) ; but in 1836, when the bank was 
virtually out of existence, the demand increased, and cotton rose from 
sixteen to twenty-two cents. 

If, then, it does not render the labor of the citizens more valuable, we 
are at a loss to discern the great advantages which the working man is 
to derive from its creation. But we are satisfied of its effects, when the 
redundancy of paper money which it circulates, has swelled in a twofold 
relation the value of every horse, plough, harrow, and other articles of 
husbandry or family consumption which the laborer buys. Then we 
find it is an institution, which, instead of lightening the poor man's toils, 
in fact levies a heavy contribution upon the wages of his industry. It 
is an institution which makes the weak weaker, and the potent more 
powerful ; ever filching from the poor man's hand to replenish the rich 
man's purse. Your committee have mistaken the duties of legislators, 
if it is their province to guard over the peculiar interest of the specu- 
lator and gambler, who live by the patronage of banks, to the detriment 
and ruin of the honest yeomen, whose toils have raised our happy 
republic from a few dependent colonies to the highest pinnacle of 
national fame, causing Indian wigwams to give place to splendid cities, 
and the whole wilderness to bloom and blossom as the rose. It is well 
said that " the laborer is worthy of his hire ;" and the illustrious Burke 
never uttered a sentiment which better deserved to be embalmed in the 
hearts of freemen, than that the working man should feel the wages of 
his labor in his pocket, and hear it jingle. 

In conclusion, we recommend, as an expression of this body on the 
subject of a National Bank, the adoption of the following resolutions : — 

1. Resolved, That the government of the United States has no con- 
stitutional right to charter a National Bank. 

2. Resolved, That it is inexpedient and improper to charter such an 
institution at this time, even if Congress had the constitutional right to 
do so. 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION, 27 



MK. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 

Speech in the House of Representatives, April 17, 1840 — la Committee of the Whole, 

on the general appropriation bill. 

The House having resolved itself into Committee of the Whole on the State of the 
Union, on the bill to provide for the civil and diplomatic expenditures of the 
government for the year 1840, and the general policy of the administration being 
under discussion, Mr. Brown spoke substantially as follovrs: — 

Mr. Chairman : Since the commencement of the present session of 
Congress, it has been my custom rather to listen to the views of other 
gentlemen than to present any of my own. I have hitherto been a silent 
member, not from any indifference on my part as to what was passing, 
or any unwillingness to give expression to my opinion, but from an 
almost insuperable aversion to engaging in a general scramble for place 
on this floor. And now that I have arisen to address the committee, it 
would be a fraud upon its members if I did not frankly admit that it is 
not so much my purpose to discuss the bill under consideration, as to 
take part in a desultory debate which has been going on for the last ten 
or fifteen days. If, in the course of remark in which I design indulging, 
it shall become necessary for me to allude to the public or private cha- 
racter of any distinguished citizen of this country, I shall do it in that 
spirit of courtesy which becomes one gentleman speaking of another, 
and with all due regard to the station which it is my good fortune to 
occupy. I shall not indulge myself in a train of remark better suited to 
the medium of a grog shop than to the hall of legislation. The example 
has been set me by one gentleman [Mr. Ogle], of speaking of a promi- 
nent member of the other branch of the Legislature as " a common 
liar;" and by another [Mr. Stanly], of declaring that a distinguished 
Senator is a fiend incarnate, fit only to be associated with the howling 
spirits of the vasty deep. I cannot consent, sir, to follow such an 
example, however distinguished the source from which it comes. I 
leave the classical and beautiful phrases of liar and fiend to the exclusive 
use of the more refined and elegant gentlemen who belong to the party 
that claims for itself all the wealth, all the talents, and all the decency 
of the country. Plain, unpretending Loco Foco as I am, rude and 
uncouth, I will not attempt to soar with these gentlemen into the regions 
of space, but shall content myself with appearing what I really am — 
respectful and courteous to every man, and demanding from every man 
that respect and courtesy which I extend to others. I assure you, Mr. 
Chairman, I have not the slightest inclination to distinguish myself by 
the use of expressions better suited to the mouth of a street bully than 
to the lips of a member of Congress ; and I leave honorable gentlemen 
to the sole occupancy of this new field into which they have gone, free 
to reap and enjoy all the laurels that may be gathered there, undisturbed 
by any act or expression of mine. My object is to discuss principles, 
not characters. I am now about to enter the grand political arena, 



23 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

which has stretched its gigantic dimensions before me ; but before I do 
so, I may as well take a very cursory view of the bill nominally under 
discussion ; and, in doing this, T have an especial favor to ask of the 
senior members of this House. It is this : point out to me such items 
in this bill as are objectionable; tell me in what the objection consists; 
ought the whole item to be stricken out, or only a part ? and, if only a 
part, how much ? I ask this, and I do it in all sincerity. It is neces- 
sary for me to have some further intelligence on the subject, to enable 
me to act advisedly. One of the pledges which I gave my constituents, 
and which I am resolved to carry out, was to aid in reforming the abuses 
of this government, if, indeed, any existed, and to reduce its expendi- 
tures, if they could be reduced, consistent with the public faith and the 
substantial interest of the country. I am here, sir, for that purpose ; 
and now is the appropriate time to commence the great work of reform. 
I am not suflSciently familiar with government to know which of the 
expenditures proposed may be dispensed with, or whether, indeed, the 
whole of them are not absolutely necessary. It is, therefore, no idle 
interrogatory, but one propounded with feelings of deep sincerity, and 
to which an answer is most earnestly solicited. Which of the proposed 
items of expenditures in this bill may be stricken out ? We are told 
that the bill proposes an expenditure of nine millions of dollars ; and 
that nine millions is an enormous sum to expend in the civil and diplo- 
matic departments of a Democratic administration. True, sir, nine 
millions of dollars is a large, if you please, an enormous sum, but twice 
nine millions would be a sum much more enormous ; and yet who will 
say that if the honor, or the substantial interest of the nation required 
the expenditure, that the appropriation ought not to be made, and made 
promptly? The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Ogle] objects to 
that item in the bill which proposes the appropriation of fifteen hundred 
dollars to the clerk employed by the government to sign land patents ; 
and, if I understood the gentleman aright, it was not that the service 
was unequal to the money, or that the office ought to be abolished, but 
that the officer was politically opposed to the gentleman ; and for this 
very substantial reason, he would refuse to compensate him for his 
labor. Sir, the service, or a great portion of it, has already been per- 
formed — performed under a positive contract, a solemn law of Congress. 
This is not denied, nor is it objected that the service has not been faith- 
fully and efficiently performed ; but the person performing it is objec- 
tionable to the gentleman, and this furnishes ample reason, in his judg- 
ment, for violating the plighted faith of the nation, and disregarding the 
positive right of an officer of government. If the office has become a 
sinecure, and there is now no longer any necessity for it, let us, like 
men guided by reason, and not like children controlled by the caprices 
and prejudices of the moment, go to work, pay for the service already 
performed, and then repeal the law creating the office, and thus get 
clear of the officer. But do not disgrace yourselves and the nation by 
taking the service of a citizen, and then refusing to pay for it, even 
though that citizen be the son of a Democratic President ; and let it be 
continually borne in mind that the present administration is nowise 
responsible for the passage of the law creating this office. It was passed 
under the late administration, and at a time when at least one house of 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 29 

Congress (the Senate) was opposed to that arlmiiiistration, and for tlie 
reason, I suppose, that there was then thought to be a necessity for it. 
If that necessity has ceased, let the hiw cease with it. All I now say 
is, that we cannot, and if we could, we ought not, in this informal man- 
ner, to get clear of this responsibility of government. I think (and the 
gentleman, on reflection, I fancy, will concur with me) that he would 
much better have expended the time and treasure of the country ir. 
proving the law to be no longer necessary, than in abusing the President 
and his son for offences of which they are even more innocent than him- 
self, and the party with which he is associated. 

Again : the gentleman would have us abolish the office of Minister to 
Russia, Spain, and Mexico, not by a repeal of the law creating them, 
but by refusing to vote the necessary compensation to the respective 
incumbents. This, to my palate, Mr. Chairman, smacks a little too 
strong of agrarianism. This is levelling as with the scythe of ruin, and 
with no regard to law, order, or the ordinary rules of common honesty. 
This is the worst species of Loco Foco agrarianism. Has the gentleman 
properly considered this subject ? Is he quite certain that the honor 
and dignity, and even the pecuniary interest of the nation, would not 
suffer by such an act ? If it would not, then, sir, if the gentleman will 
place his proposition before the House in proper form, I will vote for it ; 
but I cannot consent. Loco Foco as I am — and therefore prepared, no 
doubt, in the judgment of the very eloquent gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania [Mr. OgleJ, for the performance of any act, be it never so mon- 
strous — to put my country in a light so disreputable before the world, 
as to refuse to compensate our resident ministers abroad for services 
already performed ; and thus, without inquiry and without reason, to 
reduce them from the dignity and pay of Ministers Plenipotentiary to a 
mere charge d'affaires. But, sir, the gentleman, I am sure, did not 
make the proposition seriously. He would not vote for it himself; he 
only wanted something to abuse the administration about ; something out 
of which to make political capital ; and, in the absence of all other 
things, he had brought forward this proposition, not wishing or expect- 
ing it to pass. The gentleman complains of the vast expenditures of 
government ; and when asked wherein they have increased so enor- 
mously, he points us to the Post Office Department; but he does not 
inform us of the reasons which produced this state of affairs. Nothing 
is said about the vast increase of mail facilities in all parts of the 
country — nothing about the mail being transported over millions of 
square miles, which but a few years since was a savage waste — nothing 
about the mail being carried to the door of almost every hamlet in the 
west and south-west, which, under the administration of the younger 
Adams, to which the honorable gentleman has so often and so feli- 
citously alluded, were total strangers to the post boy, and all the com- 
forts and pleasures which he bears with him. The mail transportation 
has been greatly extended within the last eight years ; but this is not 
the only, nor indeed the greatest reason which has produced the increase 
in the gross expenditures of this department. It will be found in the 
cause which has produced a multitude of political evils. It will be found 
issuing from that grand Pandora box, out of which has come all our 
political evils — the existence of banks, the redundancy of paper money, 



30 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

a species of devouring reptile, which, like the locusts of Egypt, has 
overrun and laid waste the entire country. Whilst the receipts of the 
department have been regulated by a fixed specie standard, the expen- 
ditures have been placed under the captious and ever-varying dominion 
of an ephemeral paper currency — a currency which, though now ex- 
ploded and exploding, has for the last five years placed a fictitious, 
nominal value on every particle of property and every species of labor. 
Thus, whilst the Post Office Department has been denied the right to 
increase its receipts by an increase in the rates of postage, a state of 
thincrs is produced by which it is compelled to pay one thousand dollars 
for a service which, ten years ago, could hay^ been performed for one- 
half the amount. A contractor who, in 1839, would have carried the 
mail from Washington to Frederick for two thousand dollars, would, in 
1840, demand twice that amount, because his coaches and horses cost 
him double, and he must necessarily pay twice the usual wages to his 
drivers. This grows out of an increase in the amount of paper money ; 
which, however, does not add to the current receipts of the department. 
Under all these embarrassing circumstances, it is not wonderful that the 
expenditures are increased ; the wonder rather is that the department 
should have been enabled to sustain itself at all. And that which is 
true in regard to the Post Office, is more or less so in reference to all 
the departments of government. I am aware, Mr. Chairman, that I 
shall be met at this point with the stereotyped declaration that the 
cTOvernment is responsible to the people for this inordinate issue of paper 
money — that it was the legitimate consequence of removing the deposites, 
and vetoing the Bank of the United States. Upon these points I shall, 
at a proper time, take issue with gentlemen, and endeavor to demonstrate 
the error into which they have fallen ; at present, it would perhaps be 
wandering a little too far from the record, to go off upon these collateral, 
and, to this bill, immaterial issues. Though I will not now undertake to 
show what has not produced the present and pre-existing state of affairs, 
yet may I not expect the pardon of the committee, if I digress for a 
moment, for the purpose of showing what has, in my judgment, been 
the real and main cause of their production ? Coming from a state upon 
which the evils of the day have fallen with more severity than upon any 
other portion of the Union, or of the world, and having been no idle 
observer of the grand panorama which has been exhibited in that 
country, I fancy that I can speak with some degree of assurance as to 
the causes which produced its fall, and point with some certainty to the 
pencil with which the awful picture was first marked out. I come from 
a section of the Union the most depressed and deplorable in all its 
monetary relations of any part of this vast and deeply-afflicted republic, 
affording a theme fruitful to the political economist, and presenting a 
melancholy example of the folly too often practised of abstracting capital 
from its active pursuits, and investing it in unproductive property. 
Mississippi can produce more real exports than the same amount of 
population in any part of the habitable globe ; and yet, with all her 
energies, we find her, in a time of profound tranquillity, with the ports 
of the whole world thrown open to her great staples, prostrate, writhing 
under a load of oppression, to the sustaining of which, with all her 
energies, she is found inadequate. How and why is this ? Let us not 



«•* 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 31 

be told that it grows out of any action of the federal government on the 
subjects of banks and currency. It will find its origin in another 
quarter: in a too hasty, and, I fear, an improper disposition of the 
public lands. From the year 1833 to 1836, the Indian title to vast 
quantities of the most productive territory was extinguished, and it 
became the policy of the then administration — a policy almost univer- 
sally approved by all parties — to hurry those lands as rapidly as possible 
into market. Most of them were situated in a frontier, or, at most, in 
a sparsely populated country. The wants of the settler, the sturdy 
pioneer of the south and south-west, whose little settlements here and 
there dotted the face of the wilderness, were soon supplied, and vast 
territories of the most productive soil in North America, that having 
been offered for sale and refused, now remained to be entered at the 
minimum of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. This opened a 
field for speculation too inviting long to remain unobserved, and the 
gloating eyes of avarice were turned upon it ; a tide of emigrants, from 
all parts of the country, flowed in, gladdening the wilderness for a 
season, and filling the land with joy. They, in their turn, purchased 
their little homes, and seemed contented. The soil was to them what 
property in general was to our first parents, a common stock, and each 
individual to himself appropriated, for an almost nominal sum, such por- 
tion as his wants required. But this state of things did not long con- 
tinue. Large companies of land speculators, chiefly merchants from your 
eastern cities, were organized, and vast sums of money consolidated and 
sent to the south-west, to be invested in " wild lands," that were wholly- 
unproductive ; thus abstracting from the current business a portion of 
its necessary support, to be invested where it could, by no possibility, 
produce one dollar of gain ; depleting and causing necessary languor 
and unhealthiness in the channels from which it had been abstracted, 
and giving no additional vigor to the other departments of business, the 
lands being purchased for speculation, and not for cultivation. _ When 
this species of devouring locusts came among us, and began their work 
of demolition on the public domain, our hitherto quiet and contented 
citizen became changed in his nature ; the serpent had crept into his 
Eden, and for the first time he conceived the new idea of making his 
fortune by land jobbing, rather than by tilling the soil. A portion, nay, 
the whole, of his surplus cash, which might better have been spent in 
improving his little farm, or discharging some honest obligation, was 
invested in "wild lands;" the pernicious example, like all others of 
similar character, was followed by his confiding neighbor. To-morrow 
some wanderer from his native home, in search of the new Elysium, 
finds this land of promise; pleased with the soil, and still more with the 
generous hospitality of its occupants, he determines to take up his abode. 
Land purchased at the minimum, is sold to our honest adventurer at 
twice that sum ; and he soon becomes regularly installed into all the 
mysteries of living without work ; for he, in his turn, to make a penny 
in an honest way, sells the same land for five dollars per acre. The 
news sweeps over the country like an electric flash ; the story of the 
grand speculation is on every tongue, and the same land is sold for ten 
dollars per acre. This is too much — 

" The banner is flung to the wild winds free." 



32 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Fortunes are to be made by speculation. The horn of plenty is inverted, 
and all may grow fat who will feast their appetites. Drawers are 
searched, purses are turned, the cash that jingled about the infant's 
neck is taken off, and fuss and confusion reign ; money must be raised 
to purchase more lands, that we may grow more rich. In short, sir, 
every dollar that can be raised in the whole country is taken to the land 
office, given for unproductive soil, and as essentially lost to the real 
business of the country, as though it had been cast into the sea. For- 
tunate, most fortunate had it been for my afflicted state, and for the 
whole country, if the folly had here ceased. But the real capital of the 
country being exhausted, the legislatures were importuned to create more 
banks, that there might be more money to invest in more unproductive 
lands. These banks, without capital, had all to gain and nothing to 
lose; their issues were free and unlimited; the country was flooded with 
their paper, producing the disastrous consequences, first, of an ability 
on the part of speculators to purchase large quantities of lands ; and, 
secondly, the ability to hold them at very high prices, besides stimula- 
ting every article of necessary family consumption into an inordinate 
nominal value. Every man felt rich in the possession of his real estate, 
upon which he had fixed his own price, with a firm resolve to obtain that 
price or keep the land. The land might be kept, but it was unproduc- 
tive. Holding it at very high prices suddenly checked the tide of emi- 
gration, and left the country full of venders, but without purchasers. 
Meanwhile, a system of extravagance is begun and kept up to com- 
mensurate with the fancied wealth of neighbor Humbug. The Misses 
Humbug, whose father is producing nothing, but who is rich in the pos- 
session of lands, have doffed their dunstables and a plain silk, and now 
think it quite mal-apropos with anything short of a satin hat, mounted 
with a flowing white plume. Embroidered silks, satins, shalleys, and 
velvets take the place of the old-fashioned family apparel ; splendid 
coaches, blooded horses, servants in livery, fine houses, magnificent 
furniture, rich and costly services of plate, take the place of domestic 
simplicity and plain republican elegance. All Europe and America are 
ransacked for viands to load a mahogany table, that has driven the old- 
fashioned cherry and walnut from the dining-room of a woodland cottage 
into the garret of a princely mansion. The northern merchant — as if 
reason had lost her dominion — excites and encourages the extravagance, 
by selling vast and almost incomprehensible amounts of merchandise to 
our country merchants ; they retail them to their customers, who in their 
turn find it impossible to pay in anything better than the paper of an 
insolvent bank, conjured into existence to answer the present purpose 
of some reckless speculator, that having come out of its chrysalis, has 
suddenly taken to itself wings and flown away. The country merchant 
has a wealthy customer, but one whose means are not available. He 
cannot collect his dues, and therefore cannot pay his merchant in New 
York. The New Yorker has sapped too deeply the foundation of his 
trade, by drawing from it large sums of money to be invested in un- 
profitable lands. He cannot bear up under a dishonor of his country 
paper. Our dealer is urged to pay, and he in his turn presses his 
customer ; but payment is not made, because it cannot be made ; pre- 
sently the New Yorker fails in business ; his failure embarrasses his 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 33 

neighbor, and his another, and anon a general crash is heard — terror 
and consternation possess the community. The importunities for money 
become greater and still more great. The wealthy Mr. Humbug 
determines to sell a portion of his lands, pay his debts and live inde- 
pendent. He starts out with this honest purpose; but what is his 
surprise to find everybody selling, and no one buying ! He returns 
dispirited, disappointed, disheartened. He is sued, harassed with 
executions, and finally breaks ; at this point he turns Whig, curses 
General Jackson, swears that Van Buren is the greatest scoundrel that 
ever lived, and starts to Texas. Such, sir, is a faint picture of the 
causes which have produced much of the embarrassments in my own 
country — such a brief outline of the rise, expansion, and final explosion 
of the greatest bubble that ever floated on the wide ocean of popular 
folly. But, Mr. Chairman, there is a more interesting inquiry touching 
this subject than the one usually discussed in this hall. The real 
inquiry with the great mass of the people, is not who or what produced 
the mischief, but what means are to be resorted to to get clear of it. I 
find that on all the essential points we difl'er ; we differ radically and 
essentially. It never has, perhaps it never will be, otherwise. There is 
no such thing as a concurrence among us as to what produced this 
calamity : for years has it been discussed by the ablest men in the 
nation, and with as little prospect of arriving at any harmonious result 
now as when they began. Let us not, then, waste our time in this 
unprofitable disputation. Let us rather act for the attainment of some 
present and permanent good. If the house be on fire, let us first extin- 
guish the flames, and then go out into the streets and high places in 
search of the incendiary. One of the first steps to be taken, is to intro- 
duce a rigid system of economy into all the various departments of 
business, public and private. In republics like ours, if the people be- 
come extravagant, the government is likely to be infected with the same 
mania, since it draws its subsistence and vitality directly from the people ; 
and I call upon members here to set an example to their constituents, 
worthy of emulation : let them show by their public actions that economy 
and reform is to be the order of the day, and it will exert a benign and 
happy influence over all classes of the community. But gentlemen tell 
me that something else must be done ; that it is useless to talk of 
economy to a man in the last stage of mortal existence ; that the com- 
munity is sick to death, and, if relief be not soon procured, the patient 
must expire. Sii*, we have proposed our remedy. That remedy, which 
we grant, must be slow in its operations, but will, we think, be more 
speedy, as well as more certain, than any other, to efiect a final and 
permanent cure. And what have you done ? You have stood between 
our ministering hand and the lips of an expiring patient ; and you have 
exhorted him not to receive our remedy. Still you persuade him that 
he is growing worse, and that each day he is drawing nearer and nearer 
to his final dissolution. But what, says the alarmed, exhausted, and 
dying man, shall I do to be saved ? And you modestly respond, Turn 
off your present attendant, and take us into your service. Ay, sir, take 
you into his service ; and, pray, what will you do ? How will you 
minister to his wants ? Upon this subject you are non-committal. You 
refuse our remedy ; and yet you have no panacea of your own. Will 
3 



34 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the change which you propose be so salutary in its influence as to heal 
our afflictions ? Will the defeat of Mr. Van Buren and the election of 
General Harrison act like a charm upon the country ? Is this new 
political Messiah to work by miracles ? Is he a sort of political faith 
doctor ? Tell me, sir, what he is to do for the country, and how he is 
to do it. Upon what principles will he administer the government ? 
What great measure of reform is proposed ? And how and by what 
means is it to be carried out ? General Harrison has been before the 
American people for more than four months, and no man can say — no 
man holding a position in the Whig ranks, to give force and efficiency to 
his declarations, dare say — what are his opinions upon any great ques- 
tion of national interest. Dare any man say that General Harrison is 
for or against a National Bank, Internal Improvement, the Tariff, or 
even Abolition itself ? Dare any member of the Whig party on this 
floor rise in his place and commit his party to the support of any mea- 
sure of any kind ? No, sir, they come, in the impressive language of 
my friend from Tennessee [Mr. Watterson], as the architects of ruin, to 
pull down everything and put up nothing. That I may distinctly under- 
stand the position which gentlemen intend to assume, I now, sir, call 
upon them individually, and as a party of honorable men, to come out 
and give us their principles. Do you commit yourselves to the support 
of a National Bank ? 

[Mr. Chinn, from his seat. I do.] 

But does the gentleman speak for his party ? Will his party link 
their destiny to a National Bank ? Will it be the policy of General 
Harrison's administration, in the event of his election, to create such an 
institution ? I put the categorical question to gentlemen of the opposi- 
tion, on all sides of the House, and I shall be content to receive a 
categorical answer. I am impatient for an answer, but it shall be my 
good pleasure to await the response of honorable gentlemen. I pause 
for a reply. No one answers. Then, Mr. Chairman, I am justified in 
concluding, that gentlemen either support a man without knowing his 
principles, or else they are afraid or ashamed to let his principles be 
known to the country, and to the very people whose sufi"rages they ask. 
If gentlemen can find ease and comfort in either position, I give them 
joy. Though, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen here will not commit them- 
selves or their party to the support of a United States Bank — though, 
sir, they do not, and will not, and dare not, designate this as their means 
of relief, yet I choose so to regard it. All of us agree that something 
must be done to relieve the country, purify the currency, and move 
again the stagnant pools of commerce. We (the Democrats, or the Loco 
Focos, if it please you better) say that that something must be the adop- 
tion of the Sub-treasury. You, gentlemen, say what ? You are loud 
and long in your denunciations of our scheme, and swear to it an eternal 
hate. What may we expect of you ? What do you bring forward as 
the great antagonist of the Sub-treasury ? Nothing ; literally nothing. 

I think proper to say, Mr. Chairman, to my constituents, through the 
medium of this House, that the present state of things must continue, or 
the Sub-treasury must be adopted. Nothing else can be done — nothing 
else is proposed ; and those who oppose our scheme, and produce none of 
thoir own, must be in favor of the existing state of afl'airs. If I can get 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 36 

no one here to take up a National Bank, and oppose it as the great rival 
to the Sub-treasury, I will leave this hall and discuss the question with 
particular reference to the state of political feeling in Mississippi. There 
the Whigs are more unflinching than their brethren in this latitude. 
They come out boldly, and avow their preference for such an institution. 
And now, sir, permit me to institute a brief comparison between the two 
schemes ; first premising that in all our legislative action it becomes our 
solemn and imperative duty to make our acts conform to the letter of the 
Constitution, and to the spirit and meaning of our republican form of 
government. Our venerable forefathers first conceived the idea of 
throwing ofi" the British forms, and when they had done so, they resolved 
to crown the bold adventure by establishing what had been hitherto 
unknown in the science of government, to wit : a government of the 
people. They gave us a representative democracy, and so admirably 
constructed, that once in two, four, and six years, all political power 
reverted to the people ; and so long as we adhere to that form of govern- 
ment, it is our duty to do no act which will take those powers out of the 
hands where our forefathers reposed them. Indeed, it may well be 
questioned whether it is not a species of political treason to do so. 

And now, sir, pray what is a Bank of the United States ? For want 
of better data, I take the proposition of the distinguished statesman and 
orator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay], regarded everywhere as Sir Oracle, 
the Jupiter Tonans of the Whig party. His bank was to have a cor- 
porate existence of fifty years, and an incorporated capital of fifty 
millions of dollars. And what are the important functions it is to per- 
form ? One gentleman on my right says it is to " regulate the currency." 
Another, on my left, says it will regulate commerce. My friend Avho sits 
before me thinks it will regulate the state banks ; and the member near 
me wants it as the fiscal agent to collect and disburse the revenues of 
government ; and my friend from Louisiana [Mr. Chinn], who is the only 
man of his party that has had the boldness to come out in favor of such 
an institution, thinks, I have no doubt, it would perform all these various 
offices. 

[Mr. Chinn. It did do so once.] 

I hear the response of my friend, and it is sufficient for my purpose. 
I admire his honesty, and I would compliment his frankness, but I can- 
not, except at the expense of his discretion. Yes, Mr. Chairman, a 
bank such as that of which I have spoken, might, perhaps it would, per- 
form all these various offices. But, sir, what is the bank to which you 
propose to intrust these powers, and under what influence is it placed ? 
An association of thirteen merchants of the city of New York, under a 
corporate name, elevated, by a solemn act of Congress, above the great 
mass of the people ; not subject to their will, and not reached by any 
influence of theirs ; under no control other than that of their unbridled 
will, conducting their proceedings in secret chambers, and with an eye 
single to the interest of the stockholders and favorites of the bank. And 
this is the institution to which you are to intrust the regulation of com- i 
merce, the regulation of the currency, the regulation of state banks, the 
fiscal agency of the government ; and, I will add, the regulation of the 
wages of labor, the prices of property, and the opinions of members of 
Congress. And for what period of time ? For fifty years, or until your 



36 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

bank charter expires by its own limitation, it exercises all these various 
powers supremely, independently, without control. Are these powers 
among the essential ingredients of government? Are they not in fact 
the very elements of government itself? May that be called a govern- 
ment of the people, where the power to regulate commerce, to regulate 
exchanges, and fix at pleasure the quality and quantity of the circulating 
medium of the country, is taken out of the hands of the people, and 
intrusted, for a period of fifty years, to a coterie of bank directors, OAving 
no responsibility to the people or to their representatives, but acting by 
sanction of law, in a sphere above and beyond the power and influence 
of the ballot-box ? Is that, sir, a representative democracy, where all 
the essential elements of government are taken from the representatives 
chosen by the people, and placed in the custody of a corporation — an 
immaterial thing ; a thing not visible or tangible ? Answer me these 
things ; and if you answer, as I know you must, then tell me, sir, whether 
you are violating the letter of the Constitution, immolating our forms of 
government, insulting the shades of our fathers, and converting what 
they intended should ever remain a representative democracy, into a 
sort of incorporated political oligarchy — whether, sir, you are wresting 
from the people the powers of government, and surrendering them into 
the custody and keeping of a corporation. Gentlemen insist that the 
United States Bank is to regulate the local or state banks. By this I 
understand it is to control the amount of their issues. If it expands, 
they expand ; if it contracts, they contract : thus, at its beck and nod, 
money is plenty or scarce. If the Bank of the United States wills it 
so, money is plenty, property rises in value, and wages grow higher. 
Presently, fi'om inclination or necessity, it contracts its issues, money 
becomes scarce, wages go down, and property sinks in value. Thus, by 
contracting and expanding its issues, which it does at will, it regulates 
the wages of every man's labor, and fixes the value of every species of 
property, and with as much ease and facility as you, sir, would regulate 
a clock by raising and sinking the pendulum ; and all this is done in a 
government Avhere the people are flattered with the story of their supre- 
macy, and cajoled into the belief that they are in fact the sovereigns of 
the land. 

But, says my distinguished friend over the way, Ave must tie up the 
bank with the strong cords of the law — subject it to the frowns and 
indignation of the people — let the thunders of an outraged constituency 
fail upon the ears of our bantling, and bid it pause in its career of ruin. 
Alas ! sir, it has no ear ; it will be deaf to your lamentations, here and 
elsewhere. You may scowl upon its conduct, but it is hlind to your 
indignation ; it is a mere ideal thing. You hear the winds, but you do 
not see them; you feel the rays of the sun, but cannot put your hand 
upon them ; and as well might you attempt to lock up these invisible and 
intangible things, as to attempt, by legal enactments, to restrain a bank 
within its chartered limits, ^olus locked up the winds in the mountain 
caverns, and the sun stood still at the bidding of Joshua. But, alas ! 
there are no iEoluses, no Joshuas noAV. All time, all experience, has 
shown that the tendency of corporations and of associated Avealth is to 
place themselves above the hiAV, the Constitution and people ; and as 
well, sir, in my opinion, might you attempt to chain the lion to his lair, 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 37 

by throwing cobwebs about his mane, as to attempt, by legal restrictions, 
to keep a fifty million bank Avithin any prescribed limits. 

Permit me, Mr. Chairman {and only for the sake of argument), to 
submit a proposition to honorable gentlemen ; and as I only submit it by 
way of argument, I beg that gentlemen may not be alarmed. Instead 
of giving up the powers of government, to be exercised by an invisible 
moneyed aristocracy, in the form of a National Bank, I propose to give 
them to the President of the United States. That is, sir, instead of 
having commerce, currency, exchanges, local banks, and political opi- 
nions, the wages of labor, and the value of property, subjected to the 
controlling influence of one grand consolidated National Bank, I propose 
to place them under the control of the President of the United States ; 
and I am not particular whether that President be William Henry Har- 
rison or Martin Van Buren ; nor even, sir, in the language of Mr. Clay, 
if it be Thomas H. Benton, Amos Kendall, Francis P. Blair, or the 
Devil. To the President of the United States, whoever he may be, I 
propose intrusting these powers. What objection do gentlemen make ? 
Here is the man of the people's choice, selected by them from fifteen 
millions of freemen, in consideration of his talents, his patriotism, and 
his exalted moral and political worth, to preside over their destinies. 
To this man, thus chosen, holding his ofiice for a limited tenure, with no 
motive to act corruptly, and with every inducement to act leniently, 
reached by the smiles and subjected to the frowns of his countrymen, 
with a hard-earned reputation at stake, with, in fact, all to lose and 
nothing to gain, I propose intrusting these powers. Methinks I hear 
my friend over the way, to whom executive patronage is even more 
terrible than the. ghost of Banquo was to the affrighted Macbeth, lifting 
his eloquent and impressive voice against it. Why, says he, this is 
worse than war, pestilence, and famine — more terrible than standing 
armies. Hark ye, friend, the people can do no wrong; they are sovereign ; 
they are capable of governing themselves ; at least so you and I persuade 
them ; and these powers are only to be intrusted to the man of the 
people's choice. If he act corruptly — if he play the tyrant — the people, 
the sovereign people, have the correction in their own hands ; they have 
only to exercise their reserved high constitutional privilege at the ballot- 
box, and all is right ; the corruption is made pure, and the tyrant is 
dethroned. But, says my friend, give these powers to the Executive, 
and he will rise above the people and above the influence of the ballot- 
box. If you give him these powers, you constitute him king, emperor, 
autocrat, supreme ruler of the land. You may still keep up the name 
of freedom — still cling to the withered skeleton of the Constitution ; you 
may go through the forms of an election, but its influence is not felt ; all 
political power is merged in the Executive, and the voice of the people is 
hushed, or has become as "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." Why, 
says the gentleman, in the fulness of his patriotism, and in the plenitude 
of trepidation at the horrors of executive patronage, there is not a crowned 
head in all Europe who possesses one tithe of the power you propose to 
confer on the American President. Ay, sir, and upon whom do you pro- 
pose to confer all this power ? Not upon the man of the people's choice — 
not upon the man who is elected by the people, and amendable to the peo- 
ple — but upon a soulless, unfeeling, and irresponsible corporation. If the 



38 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

possession of the powers by the President constitutes him king, emperor, 
autocrat, pray, sir, tell me, tell me, in the name of all that is reasonable 
and right — in the name of God and our beloved country, what does it f 
constitute the bank ? Says the gentleman, the bank once exercised all 
these powers, and we did not feel its tyranny. It is not the possession 
of power that constitutes the tyrant, but the exercise of it. Elizabeth 
ruled over England, and her people were prosperous and happy ; but the 
Stuarts succeeded to the throne, and tvith the same powers they threw 
terror and consternation over the land, and filled the hearts of the peo- 
ple with mourning. I know not, sir, by what feelings and motives other 
gentlemen are moved, but, for myself, if these powers are to pass out of 
the hands of the people, I want to see them put in the possession of a 
man — a thing of life — a real thing of flesh and blood. If we are to 
have any king or tyrant in this country, I want that he may be a living, 
creeping thing — something that I may see, that I may feel, into whose 
face I can look, and upon whose brow I can place my burning curses as 
he bends about these uncaptive limbs the fetters of despotism — and not 
a soulless, unfeeling corporation — an invisible, intangible, and imma- 
terial thing — a thing not responsible to man on earth, or God in heaven. 
So help me Heaven, I could not intrust these powers to Washington him- 
self, though his sainted and canonized spirit (which I trust is ever hover- 
ing around this Capitol, and rendering up its devoutest orisons to God, 
invoking His benedictions upon this people) could return to reanimate 
his body and quicken it into renewed existence. I could not, sir ; 
because these powers once given away, no residuary power could make 
us free ; and that which I could not intrust to the Father of his country, 
I surely would not intrust to a corporation, even though that corpora- 
tion consisted of thirteen New York merchants, and they not only honest 
but above suspicion. Here I am met by the declaration that I expect 
the Sub-treasury to perform all these various functions, and that the 
Sub-treasury is the creature of the President and under his control. 
Without saying how far the Sub-treasury scheme, when it shall get into 
successful operation, will affect the commerce, exchanges, currency, and 
local banks of the country, I will suggest that it will control them, if at 
all, by a fixed and determined rule — a rule not under the control of the 
President, but one settled by law, and which must ever remain the same 
until it is altered by an act of Congress. The power in a bank which 
makes it dangerous, and which, in truth, gives to it influence, is its 
ability to issue paper money otherwise than on a metallic basis, make 
discounts, and receive money on deposit. Give it these, and it will not 
be, like Archimedes, in want of a place on which to rest its fulcrum ; it 
has this ; it has, in addition, all the elements of power and strength, and 
it needs but the will to apply them, which it is too apt to have, to repel 
the government itself. Deprive it of these, and it is a shorn Sampson, a 
fangless serpent, which may have the will, but not the ability, to do 
mischief. The Sub-treasury possesses none of these powers — not one 
of them. Another, and not the least by far of the advantages which it 
claims over a National Bank, is that it is ever subject to the controlling 
influence of the people. The people, in the person of their representa- 
tives, may alter, amend, or abolish it, at pleasure. And this, sir, seems 
to be in accordance with the spirit and meaning of our free institutions. 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 39 

But a bank presents the singular anomaly of a creature rising above the 
creator ; of an institution in a government of the people rising above the 
people ; for, according to Whig ethics, a bank charter is not alterable, 
or amendable, except at the discretion of the bank. 

I regret, Mr. Chairman, that I have pursued this subject so far. I 
have said more, much more, than I had intended ; and yet I do not well 
see how I could have said less ; finding it incidentally connected with the 
defence of the administration against the general charge of having pro- 
duced a state of calamity and ruin, and now neglecting or refusing any 
corrective, I have been insensibly led into these observations. If they 
produce the slightest effect here or elsewhere, I shall be more than com- 
pensated for all the trouble they have cost me. Asking pardon of the 
committee for the aggression, I return to the bill, and to the arguments 
of gentlemen who have spoken in opposition to its passage. 

I am told that this bill is an executive measure — that it comes here 

with the impress of the tenant of the White House upon it, and that it 

does not give evidence of that rigid economy which we were informed 

in the beginning of this session was to become the order of the day. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, I appeal to gentlemen to show me in what this 

bill gives earnest of the extravagance, profligacy, and corruption, of 

which we hear so much. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Ogle] 

is the only member, of the dozen and one Opposition orators who have 

spoken on this bill, that has deigned to tell us in what its extravagance 

does consist. He desires to have our Ministers recalled from foreign 

courts, and their places supplied by charges d'affaires. But he has not 

shown us how we are to avoid national dishonor in such an act. What, 

sir, will be said of a nation of fifteen millions of freemen, who, refusing 

to reciprocate an honor extended to it by a foreign power, by sending 

here their resident Minister Plenipotentiary, assigns for it the ridiculous 

reason " that we are too poor to bear the expense." I am for economy 

and retrenchment ; but I spurn them if they are to be purchased at the 

expense of national pride and national honor. Economy is wanted ; but 

this is not the way to economize. Retrenchment is demanded; but it 

must not, and so far as I am concerned it shall not, commence here. I 

would, sir, have you commence this work of economy and reform as the 

physician ministers to his patient — first learning the seat of the disease, 

and then applying the remedy. If an arm be affected, I would not have 

you amputate the leg ; and if a man's head be sick, I would not have 

you pierce his heart. And so, sir, of the body politic. If the disease, 

the extravagance, the profligacy, of which you speak, exist in the War 

Department, go there with your remedy : if in the Navy, go there : and 

if in the Treasury or Post Office, go there. But do not, I pray you, 

stretch the government on the Procrustean bed, and, under pretence of 

curing a diseased part, cut off a leg on this side, and an arm on that, 

until you have so mutilated its fair proportions that it withers and dies, 

or hobbles out a miserable existence, " the pity of its friends and the 

scorn of its enemies." Much, very much, has been said, Mr. Chairman, 

about " frauds and corruption" in all the departments of government, 

and it is given out that this bill is its hiding-place. The great recluse, 

who is ever present, and always invisible, has his cavern, his mysterious 

and undiscovered home, in this bill. I am rejoiced that the discovery 



40 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

has been made. I congratulate gentlemen and the country that we are 
at lenst so close upon the heels of the many-headed monster ; and .to 
prevent every possibility of his escape, I propose that we station some 
of our best tacticians around this bill, after the fashion of surrounding 
the Pontine marshes, and that gentlemen go with fire and sword, if they 
please, and drag this monster from his den. Sir, I rejoice that this 
grand' crusade, after the far-famed "fraud and corruption," is at last 
drawing to a close. Unlike the Seminoles in Florida, you have traced 
him to his hiding-place. You have the soldiery under your command, 
and if the enemy be not now taken it is your fault. Then be not sleep- 
inw on your posts — gird on your armor, and let the work of war be 
heTird w'ith the coming in of to-morrow's dawn. Hitherto you have 
complained that the soldiery were not of yours; that their cause was 
not your cause ; that their feelings and attachments were with the enemy, 
and that they did not carry on that relentless warfare which the emer- 
gency of the hour and the perfidy of the enemy so imperiously demanded. 
Sir, you can no longer make that complaint. The captain-general of 
this House (the Speaker) is he whom you have chosen to the high com- 
mand—and he has not betrayed you. He has chosen the captains and 
lieutenants and drill sergeants from your own ranks, and, after a cam- 
paign of three months, they return, throw down their armor, declare 
that there is no enemy in the country, and ask to be disbanded. But 
the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. W'ise], whose quick ear detects the 
slightest sound, and from whose watchful eye no phantom can escape, 
avers that there is an enemy in the country ; that he has seen him and 
felt him ; and with a zeal and energy which does equal justice to his 
head and heart, he demands, in the name of his besieged country, that 
the army be not dispersed. Sir, I agree with him, and I will go with 
the honorable gentleman in his opposition to this abrupt termination of 
a seven years' war. If for nothing else, in very charity I will do it. 
For it would be an unkind cut, after all we have heard about this mon- 
strous enemy of our country for the last seven years, to permit gentle- 
men now to acknowledge that there was indeed no such enemy in the 
land. Nay, sir, I will do more. I will give my humble aid (and I can 
say as much for my honorable colleague) to the elevation of the honor- 
able gentleman [Mr. Wise] himself to command. If he is not pleased 
with the conduct of his honorable friend [Mr. Briggs, chairman of Expen- 
ditures, &c.], perhaps he could be pleased with his own mode of warfare. 
The gentleman has some experience, too. His celebrated cruise to New 
York (on the Swartwout Committee) won for him laurels, green and 
glorious, but laurels on which one so young and valiant would not be 
content to recline, when others, still more rich, were to be gathered in 
the same field. I thought myself that the celebrated Swartwout cam- 
paign was a little too Quixotic— had a little too much of the windmill 
about it ; but in this I may have erred ; and, in the error, may have 
done the honorable gentleman some injustice. I am, therefore, the 
more anxious that he should assume the command, and by an exercise 
of that chivalry and high bearing, which I know he possesses, terminate 
the worst of all our wars — the war against "fraud and corruption." 

If the gentleman will allow me, and will receive the suggestion in all 
kindness, I will remark that the country expects him to take the lead 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 41 

in this war. If mj memory does not betray me into error, the honor- 
able member made pledges to the country on this subject — pledges which 
the country is anxious to see fulfilled. And I again tender my humble 
services to the distinguished gentleman in enabling him to carry out 
those pledges. 

But, Mr. Chairman, in all sober seriousness, I do beg of gentlemen, 
either to cease this eternal clamor about frauds and corruption, or go to 
work and expose them. They have ample verge and scope ; they elected 
their Speaker, and have all the committees organized to their liking ; 
and if this is not satisfactory, if committees of their own friends, whose 
duty it is to investigate the frauds and expenditures of government, will 
not perform their trust, let them ask for another organization of com- 
mittees ; or, if they please, for select committees. Let them ask for 
anything and everything, and I, and the party with whom I am asso- 
ciated, are prepared to give it to them. We ask one of two things, 
either that they cease their clamor about frauds, corruptions, and per- 
jury, or that they go with committees, organized after their own fashion, 
and ferret out the evidence of these abuses. One of these things I ask, 
in the name of the party with whom I act — in the name of the whole 
country — in the name of justice, decency, and propriety ; and from this 
day forward I want it distinctly understood, that the Whig party have 
had, now have, and will continue to have, full, ample, and unlimited 
power to search, winnow, and investigate, every department of this 
government, from the State down to the Post Office, in all their various 
ramifications. 

When I came here, Mr. Chairman, I expected the first note that would 
have fallen upon my ear had been a Whig lamentation, that the party in 
power would not permit investigation ; that the most enormous frauds 
were daily perpetrated, and that the spacious mantle of executive and 
legislative connivance was thrown over to conceal them ; and I left home 
with the firm purpose, without regard to consequences to my party or to 
myself, to assist in removing that mantle, and in exposing this perfidy. 
Imagine, sir, my surprise, when almost four months of the session had 
gone, to hear for the first time, an anxiety expressed to see these 
frauds investigated ; and how much greater was my surprise, when I 
heard the very gentlemen who had been loudest and longest in their 
outcry against these things, the most reluctant to engage in the work 
of investigation — one gentleman [Mr. Briggs] wishing to have his com- 
mittee discharged, and another [Mr. Wise] lecturing him for his want 
of devotion to the country, but still reluctant to take his place. Why, 
sir, I expected, after the annunciation of the last winter, by the gentle- 
man from Virginia [Mr. Wise], that the clerks of the departments were 
in the habit of coming secretly to his chamber at midnight, and disclosing 
to him the enormous frauds that were going on, that no space would 
have contained him, if he had been denied the privilege of carrying on 
his investigations ; but, instead of this, the gentleman has been as quiet 
as a lamb, and even now shows no inclination to commence the great 
work. I submit to the honorable gentleman, whether it is quite patriotic 
in him, convinced as he doubtless is of the existence of these enormous 
frauds, not to be more vigilant and industrious in ferreting them out ? 
Or has the gentleman concluded with me, that it was no real thing that 



42 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

whispered in his ear, but a mere creation of his heated imagination — a 
kind of spirit, that, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, said : — 

'* But that I am forbid 
To tell the secrets of my prison house, 
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word 
Would harrow up thy soul ; freeze thy young blood ; 
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ; 
Thy knotted and combined locks to part ; 
And each particular hair to stand on end 
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine." 

Ay, sir ; that it was in fact a ghost, I do not doubt ; but that it was 
an honest ghost, I do doubt most essentially. 

In connection with this subject, I do not feel inclined to discuss the 
merits or demerits of the aspirants to the presidency. But there was a 
remark of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Ogle], to which I must 
allude. He informs us that the President of the United States has been 
defeated in his native state (New York), for no better reason than that 
he is " a Northern man with Southern principles." This remark, coming 
as it did from an avowed Abolitionist, struck me with peculiar force. I 
felt deeply and sensibly the truth of the suggestion, and I could but ask 
myself how it was received by Southern Whigs, acting in concert with 
the gentleman in his opposition to the President — whether it fell upon 
their ears like the dulcet vibrations of an ^olian harp, or Avhether it 
was not to them like the death-knell of Southern hopes and Southern 
rights. The South will learn ere long to know her friends, and, learning 
this, she will find that her bitterest foes do not always live north of 
Mason and Dixon's line ; but within her own borders, living upon her 
soil, honored with her confidence, and receiving the protection of her 
laws, are men who hold the hemlock to her lips. Unfaithful friends 
are more to be dreaded than the most open hostile enemy ; and I pray 
that the South may not fall, if fall she must, by the treachery of her 
own sons, or, expiring, she may not have cause to exclaim : — 

" The shaft that deepest in my bosom went 
Was from the bow pretended friendship bent." 

With the candidate of the Whig party I have nothing to do. I do 
not possess the power, and if I did, I would not exercise it, of plucking 
one laurel from the wreath that decks his veteran brow. His official acts 
are matters of record, about which it ill becomes me to be lecturing those 
who have as ample opportunity as myself to learn. I pass over, there- 
fore, in silence, his military career. I have nothing to say about the 
battle of the river Raisin, nothing about the abandonment of Fort San- 
dusky. With the sacrifice of the gallant Daviess I have nothing to do. 
The battles of the Thames and the far-famed Tippecanoe were fought ; 
by whom, and with what honor to the country, I leave history to decide. 
Nor shall I pause to inquire whether General Harrison had an honorable 
or dishonorable discharge from the army. It is enough that he resigned 
his commission, and was succeeded in the command by one who brought 
the war to a brilliant and glorious termination. I will be permitted, 
however, to remark that it is not in good taste to have opposed General 
Jackson's elevation to the Presidency because he was a military chieftain, 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 43 

and to advocate General Harrison's pretensions on the same grounds. 
Of General Jackson it was said that it were better that war, pestilence, 
and famine should visit the country, than that a military chieftain should 
be chosen to rule over it. And yet, by the same men, we are exhorted 
to vote for General Harrison because he is a military chieftain. Why, 
say gentlemen, in the darkest hour of our political travail, when clouds 
and darkness overshadowed the land; when cowardice and treachery 
had brought disgrace upon our arms, and clothed this broad land in 
mourning ; when the eyes of the whole country were anxiously looking 
for some redeeming spirit, Harrison came forth ; he rallied to the rescue ; 
he changed our mourning into public rejoicing ; he raised the tattered 
star-spangled banner from being soiled and trailed in the dust, to be 
borne aloft amidst the 

" Shock, the shout, the frown of -war;" 

that he wrung the laurel from the bloody fangs of the British lion, and 
wove it in the glossy plumage of the American eagle, and sent her soar- 
ing through the skies, the glad harbinger of glory and of victory. All 
this may be true, but if it is, history has done the general exceedingly 
great wrong, not to have recorded the facts, or to have done it so bung- 
lingly that another has received the homage of a people whose gratitude 
should have been bestowed on him. But as military services do not 
always afford the best evidence of a man's qualification for the presi- 
dency, may I not be permitted, with proper respect to the general and 
his friends, to inquire what are his civil claims ? We present a candidate 
whose opinions are clearly defined, and everywhere understood. You 
attack the errors of those opinions, but you deny us the privilege of 
either concurring in, or dissenting from the opinions of General Harrison, 
because you will not let us know what those opinions are. We are 
gravely informed that the great Harrisburg convention did not deem it 
prudent to make any general declaration of the opinions and principles 
of the opposition party ; and that the committee into whose hands the 
candidate of the party has been placed for safe keeping, have determined 
that he should make no more disclosure of his opinions, whilst occupy- 
ing his present position. I venture the assertion that this is the first 
time in the history of this government, that any aspirant to popular 
favor has taken the broad ground that he would make no declaration of 
his opinions to friends or foes, during his candidacy. It does seem to 
me, Mr. Chairman, that gentlemen put a very poor estimate upon the 
intelligence of the people, whose suffrages they seek. Instead of coming 
out with a bold and fearless declaration of their opinions and sentiments, 
in imitation of that "time-serving, wire-working, non-committal candi- 
date of the Republican party," they deem it most advisable to keep their 
opinions concealed ; and, as if they thought the people a great booby, 
who could be cajoled and flattered with sweet cakes, candies, and sugar 
plums, they discourse him most eloquently about distress, log-cabins, 
crackers, and hard cider. And who, sir, is it that is keeping up this 
perpetual clamor about "log-cabins and hard cider?" Who, sir, but the 
lords, aristocrats, and nabobs of the land ; men, who live themselves in 
marble palaces, and drink the best wine that France ever produced; 
who use the people at elections as a farmer does his horse, to perform a 



44 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

drudgery, and then to be turned out to graze until he is wanted again, 
and again to be caught up by shaking a bundle of hay, or pounding on 
a cider barrel. Sir, I demand of gentlemen whether anything is known 
of the principles or opinions of General Harrison ? whether anything is 
urged in his favor, except that he lives in a " log-cabin, and drinks hard 
cider?" And are these qualifications that befit a man for the presi- 
dency? If so, sir, I congratulate my colleague and myself that we 
represent more than twenty-five thousand freemen, any one of whom is 
qualified for the first office in the gift of this great republic ; for they 
live in log-cabins, in fact, cabins unlike the general's — which, in sooth, 
looks very like a splendid country mansion — but the real thing, built 
of small logs, and clap-boards ; and, though our constituents do not 
drink hard cider (thank God, they are a little above that), they can 
boast of as signal service to the country in quafiing a few glasses of 
old whiskey; and if gentlemen really think that these are the only 
qualifications necessary for a President, I stipulate, as a matter of 
economy, to furnish Presidents from my state for the next five hundred 
years, for five hundred dollars apiece. In this, I trust the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania will go with me, since it is economy on a much more 
extensive scale than that of supplanting our foreign ministers. I say 
nothing of General Harrison's political opinions, for the reason that they 
are veiled in mystery, or have been expressed in such dubious language 
as to give no definitive idea of what they were. I have a word or two 
in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, to say in regard to a practice that has 
obtained very generally in this House, and which is justly esteemed 
throughout the country as one of bad moral and political tendency, not 
likely to produce any good, and out of which grow most of our personal 
broils and disasters. I allude, sir, to the practice of assailing, without 
reason, the personal and private character of political opponents, and 
more especially the character of the distinguished men of the country. 
The character of our great men belongs not to this House or this Con- 
gress, but to the whole country. It is the pedestal upon which is built 
the fairest fabric that human wisdom has ever devised. It is the pillars, 
the arches, in truth the edifice itself, of our republican government ; 
destroy this, and the whole fabric totters from its basis, and crumbles 
into atoms. Rome owed her greatness to her Senate, and Greece to her 
philosopher. In more modern times the French Chamber of Deputies 
has given tone and energy and power to a nation's character. England's 
bright escutcheon has been rendered still more bright by the eloquence 
and energy of her sons ; and America, young, happy, proud America, 
when she has run the full race of a nation's pride, when, having filled 
the measure of her goodness and greatness, bafiied every difficulty, and 
outstripped all competition, she sits quietly down upon the summit of 
her peculiar fame, far above the nations of the earth, she calls the Bis- 
sett of the new world to record her history ; she will bid him write upon 
its fairest page the names of her Calhouns, her Clays, her Websters, and 
her Bentons, for to these will she be indebted for her success, her great- 
ness, and her glory. Sir, when I contemplate the character of the 
distinguished son of Massachusetts, I do it with pride and exultation. 
Differing with him in political sentiment as wide as the extremities of 
earth, I can, nevertheless, do him that justice which his greatness 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 45 

demands. He is an American, and as an American do I honor hira, 
and I envy not that heart whose contracted limits embrace nothing but 
its especial favorites. Look upon this man, sir ; how calm, and yet how 
great ; how hke the deep and placid lake that never moves but in a 
storm ; and then, foaming and casting high the billows of passion, senti- 
ment, and wit, he seems from the very bottom of his soul to be throwing 
up the collected contents of a thousand years. And the great orator 
of the West, he in whom nature has been pleased to blend all that is 
grand and peculiar — see how, like the great father of waters, he moves 
on in sullen, solemn grandeur, with ever and anon a ripple or a spray, 
a gentle heaving of the water's surface, a thing that you may look upon 
with awe, and yet with admiration — one of nature's noblest, greatest 
works, a man whose name is commensurate with the ends of the earth, 
and whose fame is as boundless as eternity itself. Entertaining no 
sentiment in common with him, I view him as only an American 
statesman, and as an American I am proud that America has given birth 
to such a son, and no party will or discipline shall deter me from saying 
so. I turn, Mr. Chairman, from the contemplation of these characters, 
to pay the humble tribute of my admiration to one nearer my heart — 
one whose feelings and sentiments are in unison with my own — one who 
comes from my native land, from my own loved and sunny South. And 
how — how, sir, shall I speak of him — he who is justly esteemed the 
wonder of the world, the astonisher of mankind ? Like the gi eat Niagara, 
he goes dashing and sweeping on, bidding all created things give way, 
and bearing down, in his resistless course, all who have the temerity to 
oppose his onward career. He, sir, is indeed the cataract — the political 
Niagara of America ; and like that noblest work of nature and of 
nature's God, he will stand though all after time no less the wonder than 
the admiration of the world. His was the bright star of genius that in 
early life shot madly forth, and left the lesser satellites that may have 
dazzled in its blaze, to that impenetrable darkness to which nature's 
stern decree had destined them ; his the mighty magazine of mind, from 
which his country clothed herself in the armor of defence ; his the broad 
expansive wing of genius, under which his country sought political pro- 
tection ; his the giant mind, the elevated, spotless mien, which nations 
might envy, but worlds could not emulate. Such, sir, is John C. Cal- 
houn ; such the object of gentlemen's denunciations ; such the man 
whose motives are impugned and whose actions are derided. Such an 
one needs no eulogium from me, no defence from human lips. He stands 
beneath a consecrated arch, defended by a lightning shut up in the 
hearts of his countrymen — by a lightning that will not slumber, but will 
leap forth to avenge even a word, a thought, a look, that threatens him 
Avith insult. The story of his virtuous fame is written in the highest 
vault of your political canopy, far above the reach of grovelling specu- 
lation, where it can alone be sought upon an eagle's pinions, and gazed 
at by an eagle's eye. His defence may be found in the hearts of his 
countrymen — his eulogium will be heard in the deep-toned murmurs of 
posterity, which, like the solemn artillery of heaven, shall go rolling 
along the shores of time, until it is ingulfed in the mighty vortex of 
eternity. Little minds may affect to despise him ; pigmy politicians 
may raise the war cry of proscription against him : be it so ; insects 



46 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

buzz around the lion's mane, but do not arouse him from his lair. The 
confidence of Americans will never be shaken in the wisdom of this 
man's acts, nor, sir, in the patriotism of his counsels. Imprecations will 
add but other links to the mighty chain that binds him to his country- 
men ; and each bUist of your war trumpet will but awaken millions to 
his support. His firm adherence to principle, in defiance of every 
danger, and his noble sacrifice of personal prejudice upon the altar of 
his country's good, whene'er his country's good has demanded the sacri- 
fice, has placed upon his brow a wreath of imperishable glory which there 
shall flourish in immortal bloom. Who, sir, is John C. Calhoun, and 
where is he ? the noblest son of the sunny South — her genial rays have 
awakened a feeling of patriotic devotion upon the altar of his heart which 
the ice-bound bosom of your Eastern serf has never felt. He stands, 
sir, like the sun-gilt summit of some lofty mountain, around whose base 
the angry clamors of petty politicians waste themselves in vain — 

" Like some tall cliff, whose awful form 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm : 
Whilst round his base the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on his head.'' 

Why, sir, it was but the other day that I heard him sneeringly (rather 
gneeringly, I thought, for one who had been his friend) denounced as a 
Loco Foco. What, sir, John C. Calhoun a Loco Foco ! If so, I desire 
for myself no more honorable appellation. If, in the eloquent language 
of Carolina's most eloquent son [Mr. Pickens], that man, the grandeur 
of whose soul and the splendor of whose genius breathed not only 
inspiration into the holy cause of freedom, but throws a halo of glory 
around those burning pages which he devoted to American liberty, be 
indeed a Loco Foco, then, sir, let me ever rejoice in the thrice hallowed 
name of Loco Foco. Fling out that banner to the breeze — inscribe 
upon it the deep-detested name — and, my life upon the issue, thousands 
upon tens -of thousands, nay, sir, millions upon millions, from every 
clime, of every creed and color in the universe, will hurry to its standard, 
and if it fall they will fall with it. Nor, sir, will they deem it else than 
immortal honor to be shrouded in its folds. If the principles of John 
C. Calhoun are the principles of the Loco Focos, then, sir, are the Loco 
Focos the friends of the Constitution and equal rights, the opponents of 
tyranny in all its forms, the friends of law and its just administration, 
and the uncompromising opponents of every species of oligarchy, whether 
sole or aggregate. Then, sir, do they take the illustrious Jefferson for 
their political Mahomed, and the doctrines of '98 for their political 
Alkoran. With these professions and these practices, I, sir, am ready 
to enter with them the Sanhedrim of their political faith, and commune 
with them as brethren of the same church. For, sir, in these principles, 
which you tell me are the principles of the Loco Focos, I recognise the 
principles of Virginia, the principles of liberty, the principles of right — 
principles which, forty-five years ago, sprung from the master-mind of 
Jeiferson, like Minerva from the brain of Jove, all radiant in the armor 
of liberty and truth. They wanted but a name to stamp them with the 
genius of their author, and dedicate them to the eternal cause of human 
liberty. They have that name. They have it, sir, in your deeply- 
damned name of Loco Foco. Let them wear it through all after time, 



MR. VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION. 47 

fit emblem of their worth — fit memento of their illustrious origin. Do 
you, sir, love your country ; go practise upon these principles. Would 
you perpetuate her institutions ; go practise upon these principles. 
Would you have the star of her glory be onward in its course to the 
upper sky ; go practise upon these principles. Would you have the 
winds of Heaven saluting her flag, and the extremities of earth acknow- 
ledging her name ; go practise upon these principles ; and you may per- 
petuate the honor, and power, and glory of this country, until the last 
trump of time shall be sounded upon the confines of vast eternity, until 
the four angels, that stand on the four corners of this continent, shall, 
with one accord, lift their voices to Heaven, proclaiming " peace on 
earth, and good will to all men." 

[Mr. Brown having concluded, Mr. Jenifer, of Maryland, rose to 
make certain inquiries of the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. B.]. He 
asked if he was right in supposing that the gentleman who had just 
resumed his seat was " General Albert Gallatin Brown ?" Mr. B. 
nodding assent, Mr. J. read an extract from a newspaper, to the pur- 
port that Mr. B., in his electioneering canvass, had declared that he 
would abandon the Sub-treasury if Mr. Van Buren abandoned it ; and 
asked whether the facts, as set forth in the paper, were correct ; and he 
would further inquire whether the gentleman [Mr. B.] had not been 
the advocate of the post note system in Mississippi — a system which had 
brought bankruptcy and ruin on that state ?] 

Mr. Brown responded. He had used language similar to that read 
by the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Jenifer], but with no intention 
of conveying the idea which seemed to have been produced on the gentle- 
man's mind, that he [Mr. B.] was either a lukewarm supporter of the 
Sub-treasury before the people, or that he was subservient to the will of 
the Executive. His remarks had been garbled. What he had intended 
to say at the time alluded to, and what he believed he was understood 
as saying by all who heard him with impartial ears, was, that if the Sub- 
treasury was abandoned by the prominent members of his party, it 
would lose its chance of success ; and having lost this, he would not 
disturb the public mind by agitating a question no longer open for dis- 
cussion. Mr. B.'s own opinion would remain the same, however, what- 
ever might be the vicAvs of the President, or other gentlemen. 

As to the gentleman's second inquiry, Mr. B. said, when the subject 
was first brought to the notice of the Mississippi legislature, by a Whig 
executive, he had yielded to it a reluctant support, believing that the 
system would end in disaster. It was strongly urged, however, by those 
who pretended to more financial skill than himself, and was finally 
adopted, and proved, as he had supposed it would, a most signal failure ; 
and for the last several years, Mr. B. had been among those who took 
the lead in opposition to the whole post note system ; and it was due to 
himself to say, that had the system been abandoned when it was proved 
to have failed, and when he and his friends gave it up, none of the dis- 
asters would have befallen the state to which the gentleman has alluded, 
and which he is right in supposing had their origin in the system as 
practised in Mississippi. 

Mr. Jenifer asked if Mr. Brown had not, as late as April, 1839, given 
a vote in favor of post notes. 

Mr. Brown positively denied having given any such vote. 



48 ALBERT G. BROWN. 



FEES OF UNITED STATES MARSHALS AND 

CLERKS. 

Pvemarks in the House of Representatives, Monday, February 22, 1841 — In Com- 
mittee of the Whole on the General Appropriation bill, on the amendment of Mr. 
Thompson of Mississippi, in relation to the fees of Marshals, Clerks, &c. 

Mr. A. G. Brown said the proposition of his colleague was the only 
one for which he could vote. That amendment proposed to reduce the 
fees of officers in the District and Circuit Courts of the United States to 
a standard with the fees of officers performing like services in the courts 
of the several states ; and it further provided that the fee bill in the 
federal courts should in all after time conform to the fee hills of the 
state courts. This was right. The fee bills of the state courts were 
under the control of the legislatures of the respective states ; and there 
was not, in his judgment, the slightest danger but that the people would 
always exercise sufficient control over their immediate representatives to 
force such a regulation of the fees of law officers as should be acceptable 
to themselves. He believed there was no community in the Government 
who would object to pay marshals and clerks of the United States 
courts the same fees that were paid to clerks and sheriffs of state courts ; 
and he was quite certain that no people would be willing to pay more. 
Pass then the amendment of his colleague, and you would do all that 
you ought to do — all that the people command you to do on this subject. 
You leave the fee bill in the federal courts to be regulated by local 
legislation. There was a peculiar fitness in this. Services in some 
states were worth more than like services in other states. The legisla- 
ture of New York was the best judge of what the issuance of a subpoena, 
or the service of a capias, was worth in that state ; and the legislature 
of his own state (Mississippi) was most competent to adjust all sucli 
matters in that state. If Congress undertook to pass a general fee bill, 
it must necessarily do injustice to some of the states, since that bill, 
which conforms to the interest of the South, may be much too heavy for 
the North, where labor is generally much lower ; and every one knew 
it was worth more to discharge the duties of marshal or sheriff, in a 
sparsely populated country, than in one densely settled. At all events, 
there could be no harm in leaving this matter entirely in the hands of 
the respective state legislatures. The proposition of his colleague [Mr. 
Thompson] proposed to place it there, and to permit it to remain through 
all after time. 

The bill, as reported from the Committee of Ways and Means, he 
deemed a political enormity. What does that bill propose ? Why, sir, 
•not to reduce the fees, but to collect from the unfortunate debtor the 
enormous sums which you have always forced from him with such misera- 
ble twaddle as that clerks and marshals are not permitted to retain the 
money, but compelled to pay it over to the United States Treasury — as 
though it was a matter of any sort of consequence to the plundered man 
whether the money which you had thus forced from him went into the 



FEES OF UNITED STATES MARSHALS AND CLERKS. 49 

pockets of an officer or the vaults of a bankrupt Treasury. For one, if 
this system of legalized plunder was to be kept up, he desired, so far as 
his oAvn state was concerned, that the clerks and marshals mio-ht have 
the benefit of it. In that event, meritorious citizens in Mississippi would 
derive some benefit from jour cruelty to the unfortunate ; and the aggre- 
gate wealth of the state would not be diminished. But pay ij into the 
Treasury of the United States, and what goes with it ? It is lost to us 
and ours for ever. It goes to build up light-houses, harbors, and to 
make other improvements in your Eastern States ; and the gross amount 
of the wealth of Mississippi is diminished to the full amount of the money 
thus unrighteously abstracted from the pockets of his indebted constitu- 
ents, and strained through the hands of federal officers into the vaults 
of the nation. His constituents had asked to be released from this oner- 
ous taxation, and you propose to quiet their supplications by taking 
their money to build light-houses and other things for the benefit of 
other states. Sir, this is not the relief asked for, and it is an insult to 
the people thus to respond to their petitions. If you take the money 
from the poor litigant, let the marshal and clerk keep it. The people 
of Mississippi had already been forced to pay five times their just quota 
for the support of Government under the tarifi" laws and land laws of the 
United States; and now you propose to levy a tax of seventy-five or 
eighty thousand dollars per annum, and call it relief. Believe me, Mr. 
Chairman, my unfortunate constituents have had a surfeit of just such 
relief. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I have another and insuperable objection to the 
bill as reported by the committee, or as proposed to be amended by the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson], and that objection is one 
founded on what I deem to be a just and proper construction of the 
Constitution. If I have read that instrument aright, it secures equality 
in taxation to all the people of this Confederacy ; and what do you pro- 
pose to do by this bill ? Why, sir, to collect oif of about two thousand 
defendant suitors and citizens of Mississippi, eighty-five thousand dollars 
in the way of tax on lawsuits. Of this sum, you propose to give to the 
marshal ten thousand dollars as a maximum of his compensation, and to 
pay the remainder into the United States Treasury. Is that equality 
of taxation which exacts from two thousand citizens of Mississippi, who 
are so unfortunate as to become suitors in your federal court, a tax of 
seventy-five thousand dollars, whilst you exempt from similar taxation 
the remaining thirty-five thousand who are not suitors in that court ? 
Is that equality of taxation which exacts seventy-five thousand dollars 
from two thousand citizens of Mississippi, and not one cent from the five 
hundred thousand who live in Ohio ? Is that equality of taxation which 
exacts of me fifty dollars, because I am so unfortunate as to be sued, 
and yet exenipts entirely my neighbor or my brother, who is not sued ? 
Is that equality of taxation which exacts of the unfortunate debtor thou- 
sands and tens of thousands, and not one cent from the unembarrassed 
and unindebted part of the community? And does any man seriously 
pretend that this will not be the result if this law is passed ? Is it not 
in fact avowed, in all parts of the House, that this will be the result ? 
And have not defences been attempted to be set up for this political 
monstrosity ? 



50 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Sir, you have no authority to raise revenue in this way ; and if you 
had, it would be a monstrous abuse of power to exercise your authority. 
I would not have one dollar of revenue collected in this Avay ; — such ill- 
gotten gain — gotten in violation of the Constitution — wrung from the 
unfortunate debtor — coined, as it were, from the flesh of a tortured 
citizen, I^hould expect to turn to slimy reptiles and to hissing adders, 
that Avould besmear the vaults of your Treasury with their filth, and 
sting, as with a deadly poison, each hand that dared remove them. I 
cannot, I will not, vote for any maximum compensation — to do so is to 
fix a contingency on the suffering, of which this ill-gotten treasure enures 
to the nation. You have no authority to fix any such contingency. You 
liave no authority to take one dollar of money collected in this way, 
though there were millions wrung from the unhappy citizen. I will 
vote for the proposition of my colleague, and I shall do so with great 
pleasure ; but when this is done, I shall have done all that I can or will 
do. I shall not be accused of voting against a maxinmm through party 
motives, for before this law goes into effect — if it passes at all — there 
will probably not be a political friend of mine in any office in the re- 
public within the gift of the Executive, that is worth asking for. I claim 
to give the vote which I shall give, against the original proposition, and 
against the amendment of my friend from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson], in 
obedience to my sense of justice to my constituents, and my duty to the 
CopH'.tution, and to these alone. 



ADDRESS 

rO THE PEOPLE OF MISSISSIPPI, PREVIOUS TO THE GUBERNATORIAL 

ELECTION IN 1843. 

Fellovz-Citizens : Having been presented to you by a portion of my 
political friends, as a candidate for Governor, I beg to trespass so far 
upon your attention as to declare succinctly the principles by which I 
shall be j>overned in the event of my election. Aware that the chief 
magistrate of a single state can exert but a limited influence over the 
general politics of the country, I am also aware that such officers are 
seldom chosen but in reference to their views on questions of a national 
character. Not being responsible for the establishment of this custom, 
long recognised and practised upon as strictly orthodox by both political 
parties, no apology can be expected from me if I conform to it. 

I have mingled some little in the party contests of the day, and most 
of you are aware that I claim to be a Republican in that sense in which 
the term was used and understood in 1798, '99, and 1800. Unfor- 
tunately, however, this simple annunciation nowadays proves nothing, 
since men of all creeds claim the proud title of Republicans of '98. 
The men who Avere most vociferous in their denunciations of Republicans, 
when Federalism was in the ascendant, and down to the very hour of 
the final overthrow of that monstrous political heresy, are now loudest 
in their pretensions to pure and undefilcd Republicanism. Within the 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF MISSISSIPPI. 51 

last three years, I have heard the man who first moved the resolutions 
that convened the Hartford Convention, declare on the floor of Congress, 
that he was every inch a Republican, and that Thomas Jefferson was 
the incarnation of Federal Loco Focoism, and it is notorious that many 
of the bitterest revilers of Jefferson, Madison, Taylor of Caroline, and 
the Spartan band, who made Virginia the ThermopyliB for resisting the 
march of federal millions, are now rejoicing in the title of Republican 
Whig. Fortunately there's nothing in a name. If I were required to 
define my political creed, in two words, they would be " Madison's 
report;" for, in my judgment, that paper, containing as it does a 
luminous exposition of the principles set forth in the Virginia resolu- 
tions, is the very quintessence of Republicanism. The Kentucky resolu- 
tions went a step further, and them, too, I endorse. 

I am for the currency of the Constitution. I am a hard-money man, 
a bullionist. There is no grant in the Constitution for the erection of 
engines, mills, and other machines for the manufacture of paper money. 
The framers of the Constitution were hard-money men — they had profited 
by the sad example of England and France in the seventeenth century, and 
the no less melancholy fate of the colonies, growing out of their connection 
with continental notes and other paper currencies, and they determined to 
exempt the new government from such baleful influences, and declared 
that it should have the power to coin money and regulate its value, and 
then stopped — and nowhere is there given to this government of their crea- 
tion, this government of limited powers, any authority over the currency, 
other than that just mentioned — to coin money and to regulate the value 
of foreign coin. Paper money is unknown to the Constitution. Our 
forefathers purposely excluded a thing of such contaminating influence 
from an instrument which they intended should always be pure. 

The government of the United States is one of limited powers. It 
can do no act except what it is specially authorized to do, or such other 
acts as are absolutely/ necessary in carrying out the expressly delegated 
powers. By its principles all political power is inherent in the people, 
to whom the law-makers are immediately responsible. These last, con- 
sisting of a President, Senate, and House of Representatives, have 
plenary authority to legislate within the scope of the Constitution, whilst 
they respectively are in office, and their successors have the same powers. 
No one body of legislators has the constitutional ability to usurp the 
power of legislation beyond the period of their election — and it follows, 
of course, that if the late Congress had passed a law and given to it a 
certain prospective operation for a definite period of time, and such law 
should prove obnoxious to the next Congress, they would have the right 
to repeal it, whether it was a simple enactment or assumed the more 
imposing form of a charter or act of incorporation. 

The government of the United States ought to confine its operations 
to the purposes of its creation — and doing this it will legislate on such 
subjects as all the states are equally interested in. It will so legislate 
as not to oppress any one or more of the states, and it will strictly 
abstain from all interference with matters merely local in their cha- 
racter. It will collect its debts and pay its dues in the currency of the 
Constitution, and abstain from all entangling, corrupting, and danger- 
ous connection with the local currency of the country. It will use the 



52 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

national treasury for national purposes — neither squandering it on "vvorks 
local in their cliaracter, nor dividing it with a prodigal hand among the 
states in unequal and unjust proportions, in the vain hope of buying tlie 
great states to support a particular aspirant to the presidency, at the 
expense and even pauperism of the small states. It will so levy taxes 
that each state, and every section of each state, shall bear equally, as 
near as may be, the burthens of government. It will foster all our 
various interests, agricultural, commercial, mechanical, manufactures, 
professional, &c., but it will protect no one at the expense of any one, or 
all the rest. It will protect our soil from the dishonor of foreign pillage 
or invasion, and it will, if need be, with all the energies of this mighty 
nation, protect our glorious flag from the dishonor of being rudely 
touched by the insolent myrmidons of Great Britain. It Avill demand 
for itself that respect and honor from the other nations of the earth, to 
which a country, boasting of seventeen millions of freemen, is justly 
entitled — and I trust in God we never shall again consent to treat Avith 
Great Britain or any other nation for soil which is unquestionably our 
own, and purchase a dishonorable peace by the surrender of our terri- 
tory. " The honor and independence of my country are the gods of 
my idolatry," and if war is ever to be averted, at the expense of these, 
then I say, let it come, let it come. 

On the subject of our state aff'airs, I am more particularly called upon 
to address you. The question of the Union Bank bonds, and their pay- 
ment, is the first in point of magnitude, and this I will first consider. 
The legislature, at its session in January, 1841, resolved that the state 
would pay this debt — from this decision an appeal was taken to the 
people, and in November, 1841, after months of patient investigation, 
that tribunal pronounced its judgment against the bonds. I supposed 
that an intelligent people knew what they were about, and that when 
they spoke they meant what they said ; but other gentlemen think 
difl'erently ; and the people, in the approaching canvass, are to be invoked 
to reverse the solemn decision pronounced by them in 1841. Will they 
do it ? is a question which awakens inquiries at once vital to the Consti- 
tution and to the future prosperity of the state. 

I believe that the pretended bonds, issued on account of the Missis- 
sippi Union Bank, find no sanction in the Constitution, but that they 
were issued in violation of that sacred instrument, which every good 
citizen in his heart is sworn to support, and that on this account, if for 
no other reason, there never did exist any sort of obligation, moral or 
constitutional, on the part of the state, to pay these bonds, or any part 
of them. 

I believe that the bonds were not sold in conformity to the pretended 
law under which they issued, and I am of opinion that an undertaking 
to pay them would be to sanction a most dangerous infraction of the 
Constitution, and to lay the foundation for the final ruin and bankruptcy 
of the state. Be not deceived, fellow-citizens, by those who tell you 
that this vast debt, with all its accumulating interest, will be paid with- 
out resort to taxation. As certain as that there is a God, if any pay- 
ment is ever made, it will be from the hard earnings of our people. 
You will be told that the Union Bank will be put in liquidation for the 
payment of this debt : believe me, fellow-citizens, the chief assets of that 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF MISSISSIPPI. 53 

concern have already been liquidated, and the little that remains is fast 
evaporating under the genial influence which surrounds it. 

No one at all conversant with the affairs of the Union Bank, believes 
it competent to pay the interest on the debt alone, to say nothing of the • 
principal. But so far as it will pay, I am not only willing, but anxious, 
to see it applied. This being done, I am opposed to any payment by 
taxation — and I shall continue to resist any acknowledgment of the 
debt or promises to pay the balance that may be due after exhausting 
the assets of the bank. Such an acknowledgment and promise will 
impose an obligation on the people to submit to taxation, from which there 
will be no escape ; and those who vote directly or indirectly for the 
assumption of the debt, ought to know the consequences which are to 
follow, and be prepared to meet them. No one of my competitors takes 
the lead of me in wishing to see the assets of the bank turned over to 
the bond holders, but they are both for taxation to pay the balance that 
may be due after this is done, and I am opposed to it — and this is the 
chief difference between us. 

On the subject of the Planters' Bank bonds, I have only a word to 
say. They ought to be paid, and it seems to be conceded, on all hands, 
that the state has ample means for the payment of these bonds, without 
any resort to increased taxation. These means I am strongly in favor 
of seeing applied to the payment of the debt as speedily as possible. 

I think the revenue laws might be so amended as to render taxes 
more equal than they now are, and at the same time augment in some 
degree the receipts into the treasury. I will sanction any measure 
intended in good faith to eflFect these objects, but I will, in the event of 
my election, resist any increase of taxes, having for its object the imme- 
diate or ultimate payment of the bonds, unless there should be a clear 
and unequivocal demonstration of popular opinion in favor of it — and I 
have not the remotest idea I shall ever see any such demonstration. 

The annual expenses of the state government may, in my opinion, be 
reduced by wise legislation at least fifty thousand dollars below what 
they now are. To effect this, the number of circuit judges and district - 
.attorneys ought to be reduced. There should be but one session of the 
legislature in two years, and the state ought to have a day in court, 
fixed by law, so that in all cases in which it is interested, the witnesses 
might be in attendance at the proper hour, instead of attending, as they 
now do, in some cases, from day to day, for an entire term, at vast 
expense to the state. 

It is worthy of the deepest consideration, by the people of the state, 
whether there might not be a salutary reform in the penitentiary system. 
At present the labor of the convicts is so employed as to come in direct 
competition with a large and meritorious class of our citizens. It cer- 
tainly ought not to be the policy of the state so to cheapen the price of 
the mechanics' labor as virtually to drive them from their trades. Be- 
sides, it cannot be otherwise than revolting to the sensibility of honest 
mechanics to have from ten to fifty convicts discharged from the peni- 
tentiary annually, with the same trade as themselves, to become their 
rivals for employment. It is calculated, too, to bring discredit on that 
entire class of our population, since no one will be able to tell, after a 
few years, whether a mechanic, presenting himself where he is unknown, 



54 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

has learned his trade in the penitentiary or as an apprentice to some 
honorable member of the trade. I presume that no one thinks that the 
penitentiary is a proper place to educate lawyers and doctors? 

I think this state ought at least to make an experiment on the manu- 
facturing of rope and cotton bagging, from coarse cotton, -with the view 
of converting the entire labor of the convicts to the fabrication of those 
articles. If the experiment succeeds, and there can be no doubt of it, 
it will open a new market for our refuse cotton, and save to the state 
annually many thousand dollars, now paid away for bagging and rope, 
and at the same time be the means of protecting a class of our citizens 
from wrong and injustice, than whom there is none more deserving of 
public consideration. 

The subject of education is one which has already been too long over- 
looked in this state. The seminary fund has been strangely neglected. 
If I should be elected, it will be an object with me from the day of my 
installation, to procure the application of this fund to the subject for 
which it was intended. If the state is ever to have a seminary of learn- 
ing established on liberal and enlightened principles, there can never be 
a better time than the present. The best service this generation can 
render those who come after us, is to bequeath to them schools, acade- 
mies, and colleges. In addition to the seminary, I should be pleased to 
see a well regulated system of free schools established, and if we are to 
he taxed for any other purpose than an economical support of govern- 
ment, I greatly prefer that it shall be for the establishment of schools, 
in which every poor white child in the country may secure free of charge, 
the advantages of a liberal education. The history of New England and 
her enlightened population, is a most striking commentary on the advan- 
tages of the free school system. 

I am opposed, for many reasons, to seeing the five hundred thousand 
acres of land lately given to the state, by the United States, converted 
to any other purpose than that contemplated by the donor, to wit : — The 
erection of levies on the Mississippi, the clearing of other navigable 
rivers, and the improvement of our market roads. These are great 
objects, and ought not to be abandoned, now that we have the means 
of carrying them out, but if the faith of the state is to be violated by a 
failure or refusal to carry out the terms of the contract with the fede- 
ral government, in regard to this land, let us not add to the act of bad 
faith the folly of giving (as some gentlemen propose) the land to foreign- 
ers in payment of debts which we never owed, but let us apply it to 
purposes of education. In this way we may do something of lasting 
service to the country — something of service to this generation — some- 
thing for which posterity will bless us. It is said that the next or suc- 
ceeding generation will pay "the bonds" if we do not. Let us give 
them the means of education, so that they may at least understand their 
rights, before they undertake to pay bonds which their fathers declared 
were unconstitutional and void. 

I am for strict justice in the collection of taxes, rigid economy in the 
use of the public money, and a constant watch over all receiving and 
disbursing officers. Some officers will be faithful without watching, but 
experience has shown that to make all faithful, no one should be allowed 
an opportunity to abuse his trust, without certainty of detection and 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 55 

punisliment. The certainty of punishment will alone deter malefactors 
from the commission of crime— on this account the pardoning power 
should never be exercised by the executive, except in extreme cases. 
The court and jury, who try the accused, are the proper persons to pass 
upon the law and the facts of his case, and after conviction, punishment 
should seldom be arrested by executive clemency. Perhaps the only 
safe rule would be to pardon only when the discovery of new facts ren- 
ders it extremely probable that a different result would have followed if 
they had been known before the trial. 

Every act of the legislature, which comes in conflict with the clearly 
defined constitutional opinions of the executive, ought to be met by a 
veto, but all douhts should be solved in favor of the constitutionality of 
legislative action — and I can scarcely conceive a case where the exercise 
of the veto power could be justified on the ground of mere inexpediency. 
The representatives of the people are, or ought to be, the best judges 
on subjects of this kind. 

I have undertaken to give you a brief outline of my opinions, without 
attempting an argument to sustain them. These I have reserved for the 
stump, where I confidently anticipate meeting many of my fellow-citizens 
before the election. The only earnest which I can offer, that I will 
govern myself according to the line here chalked out, is the pledges 
given by me in former times and which I am not conscious of ever having 
forfeited. In conclusion, fellow citizens, I have only to remark that if 
you elect me, my time and talents shall be assiduously devoted to the 
public service. I will discharge my duty honestly at least, and with a 
sincere desire to promote my country's interest. Happy if I should be 
enabled to give satisfaction to those who elect me, and doubly so, if in 
all things I can succeed in sustaining the majesty of the Constitution 
and laws. 

Your fellow citizen, 

Albert G. Brown. 



FIRST INAUGUEAL ADDRESS, 

DELIVERED JANUARY 10, 1844, BEFORE A JOINT MEETING OF THE TWO 
HOUSES OF THE MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE. 

Fellow-Citizens : The people of the state having elected me_ to 
the ofiice of governor, I appear before you for the purpose of taking 
the oath prescribed by the Constitution, preparatory to entering on the 
responsible duties assigned me by the laws of the land. In doing so, I 
will conform to an ancient custom, rendered obligatory by the example 
of others, and submit to the country an outline of my views, and of the 
principles which are to govern me in my official conduct. 

It shall ever be my purpose to act completely within the powers dele- 
gated to the executive. I will avoid all encroachments upon the other 
separate departments of government; and believing that the pros- 



56 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

perity of the country demands it, I will resist, at all times, the slightest 
invasion of the rights and powers of the department under my control. 
The preservation of the Constitution, and the enduring interests of the 
citizen, demand that the lines which divide the three great departments 
of government, should be strictly observed. In my efforts to enforce 
their observance, and in all my exertions to preserve unimpaired the 
great and essential principles of free government, I anticipate the united 
support of the Avhole country. For whatever dissensions may exist 
among ourselves, and however heated our feelings may become in a 
political struggle, when the contest is over, and the result known, all 
of us bow with becoming respect, to the will of a majority ; and the 
defeated, no less than the successful party, feel a laudable anxiety to 
see the government administered with justice, and with scrupulous 
fidelity to the Constitution. 

In governments like ours, where the people rule with no other limita- 
tion to their powers, than those imposed by a written constitution, we 
cannot too often recur to that instrument, nor avoid with too much care, 
any infraction of its sacred provisions. The people, when correctly 
advised, will always do right. Having no motive to err, and the strong- 
est possible incentive to act with justice and fidelity, their unbiassed 
opinions may always be trusted. But from a great variety of causes, 
peculiar to popular governments, there is danger that majorities will 
sometimes be led into excesses. The limitations to their powers imposed 
by the Constitution are, on such occasions, the only safeguard to the 
rights of the minority. 

If these limitations be removed, no matter whether by the consent of 
the weak, or the unbridled will of the strong, the minority will sooner 
or later become the mere serfs of the majority, and our government, now 
free and happy, affording protection to us all, must gradually degenerate 
into the worst of tyrannies, — a tyranny knowing no law but the will of a 
licentious majority — affording no protection save that which the power- 
ful may deign to give. 

We are admonished by considerations such as these, to refer con- 
tinually to the instrument itself, and to invoke its silent but potent aid 
in maintenance of our rights. However much we may differ as to one 
construction of the Constitution : in whatever light we may regard cer- 
tain rights claimed by one party, and denied by another, we must all 
insist upon carrying out its positive commands, and obey with fidelity, 
its no less positive prohibitions. That temptation may sometimes be 
thrown in our way — that we may be assailed in the faithful discharge 
of our duty by the ignorant or vicious, is not to be denied. But shall 
we, therefore, be less faithful to our Constitution, or ought we not rather 
to guard it with a more vestal care ? 

Let us make all needful sacrifices to secure the good opinion of others. 
We may enlighten the ignorant, and remonstrate with such as knowingly 
do us wrong ; but sooner let us abandon our hearths and our firesides, 
than suffer the slightest infraction of this palladium of our liberties. I 
have been led into these reflections, by the too common expression that 
although the Constitution was manifestly violated in the issuance of the 
Union Bank bonds, yet, inasmuch as a majority of the people approved 
it at the time, therefore the whole people must submit to taxation to pay 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 57 

them : thus declaring that the will of the majority, and not the Con- 
stitution, shall be the measure of power, and virtually making one 
acknowledged wrong the pretext for committing a still more grievous 
wrong. But how, it may be asked, will the Constitution be violated in 
levying a tax to pay a debt, even though that debt was contracted in 
violation of the Constitution ? It has been assumed that the taxing 
power resides with the legislature, and that they may exercise it for any 
purpose within their discretion, not positively prohibited by the Consti- 
tution. This construction of the powers of the legislature, is by far too 
comprehensive. Under it, the legislative department may tax ad libitem. 
No such authority, in my opinion, was ever conferred. The legislature 
may rightfully tax the citizen to defray the economical expenses of the 
government, and to pay the debts of the state ; but it would be going 
far beyond the authority delegated to them to levy taxes to pay the 
debts of any one, or all the corporations within the state. If the Union 
Bank bonds constituted a debt against the state, then would it be con- 
stitutional to tax the citizen to pay them ; but that these bonds do not 
constitute such a debt, will, I think, be made sufficiently manifest by a 
candid review of their origin, and of that clause of the Constitution under 
which they could only issue. 

When, in 1832, the people of Mississippi met in convention for the 
purpose of re-modelling their form of government, and of adopting a 
more perfect constitution, among the most interesting of the subjects 
which addressed themselves to their consideration, was that of the public 
credit. They saw the English people laboring under a debt, which, 
commencing in the reign of William III,, had grown in the short space 
of one hundred and forty years, to the enormous sura of three thousand 
millions of dollars. They saw the French, no less fortunate in regard 
to their public debt, actually compelled, after the most painful privations, 
to throw off more than three hundred millions, issued on account of the 
public faith. They saw the states, in the new and in the old world, in 
debt beyond their ability to pay. They saw at least sixteen, out of the 
then twenty-four states of our own Union, contracting heavy liabilities 
for banking purposes, and the most visionary schemes of internal improve- 
ment. Duly impressed with the vastness of the subject, and at once 
resolving to avoid the whirlpool which had swallowed up so many states, 
they solemnly declared (see 9th sec. 7th art. Con.) that "no law should 
ever be passed to raise a loan of money upon the credit of the state, or 
to pledge the faith of the state for the payment or redemption of any 
loan or debt, unless such law be proposed in the Senate or House of 
Representatives, and be agreed to by a majority of the members of each 
House, and entered on the journals with the yeas and nays taken thereon, 
and be referred to the next succeeding legislature, and published for 
three months previous to the next regular election in three newspapers 
in this state ; and unless a majority of each branch of the legislature so 
elected, after such publication, shall agree to and pass such law ; and in 
such case, the yeas and nays shall be taken and entered on the journals 
of each House ;" and the conclusion of the declaration of rights, declares 
that "all laws contrary to the Constitution, shall be void." 

In 1837, the legislature passed a bill entitled " an act to incorporate 
the subscribers to the Mississippi Union Bank." The 5th section of 



58 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

this bill proposed that in order to facilitate the said Union Bank in the 
loan of her capital of fifteen millions five hundred thousand dollars, the 
faith of the state should be pledged, both for the security of the capital 
and interest. By the 2d section of the bill, books of subscription for 
the entire capital of the bank, were to be opened in the manner there 
pointed out, and the subscriptions when made, are, by this second section, 
declared to be for the purpose of securing the loan of fifteen millions 
five hundred thousand dollars. By the 4th section of the bill, the owners 
of real estate who are citizens of the state of Mississippi, are the only 
persons entitled to subscribe for stock. By the 8th section, subscribers 
are required to secure their stock by mortgages on real estate and other 
property, to be in all cases equal to their respective subscriptions ; and 
this is declared to be for the purpose of securing the capital and interest 
of bonds for fifteen millions five hundred thousand dollars, which were 
authorized to be issued by the 5th section. The 30th section requires 
the governor to execute to the bank, from time to time, bonds in amount 
proportional to the sums subscribed and secured^ as required by the 

charter. 

Such are some of the essential provisions of this bill, now called the 

original charter of the Mississippi Union Bank. Upon its introduction, 

no one doubted, as it proposed by the 5th section to pledge the faith of 

the state, that it came within the purview of the Constitution, and that 

it was therefore necessary to carry it through all the formula required 

by the 9th section of the 7th article of that instrument ; until this was 

done, its vitality was held in abeyance by the Constitution. It was 

required, among other things, to be published for three months in three 

newspapers of the state, previous to the next regular election ; and for 

what purpose ? To my mind, fellow-citizens, there could have been but 

one purpose, — that to enlighten the people fully as to the whole scheme 

— the amount of money to be borrowed — the mode and manner of its 

disposition — how it was to be paid back — who was to receive the profits 

— and above all, what indemnity the people were to have for their 

plighted faith. The yeas and nays were required to be spread upon the 

journals ; for what ? that the people might see who was for it, and who 

against it. This law, as originally passed, was a cunningly devised 

scheme for a bank, and one singularly calculated to captivate the public 

mind. By it, as published, among many other things, the people were 

informed that a Union Bank was to be established, with a capital of 

fifteen millions five hundred thousand dollars ; the whole capital was to 

be subscribed by individuals, and secured by mortgage on real and other 

property ; and this being done, the governor was to execute bonds and 

deliver them to the directors of the bank, for the purpose o^ facilitating 

the institution for the required capital. 

This institution, then, in which the state had no sort of concern, except 
so far as to loan her credit to individual stockholders, who had amply 
secured her against loss in the security given for their stock, was the one 
which the people were assured was to be established, and to it they were 
asked to give their sanction. They did so, and the legislature, as in 
duty bound under the Constitution, repassed this law in every line, word, 
and syllable as it had passed before. If they had here paused there 
would have been no difiiculty as to this vexed question of the bonds — 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 59 

the constitutional requirements had all been fulfilled, and if the money 
had been borrowed under the provisions of this law, the state would have 
been constitutionally bound to return it, though every dollar of it had 
been sunk in the ocean on its passage home. But in ten days after the 
second passage of this law, they passed another act, which it is now 
attempted to blend with and make part and parcel of the original act, 
though the fact is not denied that this second substantive, distinct act, 
has never undergone a solitary one of the constitutional requirements. 
By this second act the state is made a stockholder for five millions of 
dollars, and the governor is required to issue bonds for five millions, to ' 
pay for it. Thus the state agrees to facilitate the Union Bank for a 
loan of money after she is amply indemnified against loss by the indi- 
vidual stockholders in the concern, and forthwith, without consent, and 
as I assume without her knowledge, she is made stockholder for five 
millions, and to pay for it her bonds issued for that amount — and before 
anything else is done the bank goes into operation at the risk and upon 
the sole credit of the state. Is this what the state (and when I say the 
state I mean the people) agreed to do ? Is there no difi"erence between 
aiding the stockholders (or in the language of the c\vdYtei\ facilitating 
the bank), by loaning them the credit of the state, and making the state 
assume the whole enterprise herself? The argument that the people's 
representatives did this, will not do. The representative has not all 
power. He has no more right under the Constitution to issue, or cause 
to be issued, bonds in the name of the states, without first obtaining the 
consent of the people, than a man employed to labor would have by 
indenture, to sign away his employer's liberty for life. 

And this being the case, when the people gave their consent to the 
issuance of bonds, the legislature was bound to issue them, or cause 
them to be issued upon such terms and under such limitations and re- 
strictions as the people may impose. And with as much propriety might 
it be said that the people having consented to the issuance of fifteen 
millions of dollars on the credit of the state, the legislature would have 
a right to order issued one hundred millions, as to say that under autho- 
rity to issue bonds after ample indemnity has been given the state, the 
right was conferred to issue bonds upon the sole credit of the common- 
wealth, and without any sort of security or indemnity. Does not every 
one perceive that it is one thing for the state to "facilitate" individual 
stockholders of a bank by a loan of her credit after those individuals had 
secured her against loss — and that it is a very different thing for the 
state, without her consent, to be forced into banking upon her own credit 
and at her own risk. The propositions are as separate and distinct as 
any two things can be, and the people, whose will must always be con- 
sulted when the public faith is about to be pledged, might very readily 
consent to the one and yet never agree to the other. I assume that the 
people never would have assented to this second proposition — but whether 
they would or not, is not now in dispute. One thing is certain, they 
were never asked to do it, and another is equally certain, thei/ never did 
do it. 

It is said, I know, that all these are matters between the people and 
their representatives, with which the bond holders have no concern — and 
the same thing might be said if the legislature at its present or any 



CO ALBERT G. BROWN. 

subsequent session, were to issue millions of bonds in the most flagrant 
violation of the Constitution, and squander them away in the wildest 
and most profligate dissipation. If I, a citizen of jour state, purchase 
a foro-cd bond or a warrant which turns out to have been issued in fraud 
of the laws re<i-ulating the treasury, it will be admitted on all hands that 
I cannot collect it — though I may have invested in it the labor of my 
whole life — and I know of nothing in the law or in good morals which 
gives to foreigners rights over our own citizens. The principle of caveat 
emptor is applicable in all such cases to resident citizens, and I know of 
nothing which requires the settlement of the rights of non-residents upon 
a diff"erent principle. 

The position has been assumed that the stockholders of the Union 
Bank were bound to the amount of their respective stock subscribed. 
Be this as it may, it is a matter with which the legislature and execu- 
tive have no concern. The courts of the country are open for the settle- 
ment of questions like this, and to them let it be referred. 

I am not aware that any further legislation will be necessary to aid 
the parties concerned to procure an adjudication of their rights. _ If any 
should be, however, I shall be willing at all times to concur in such 
measures as the legislature may adopt for that purpose. 

Whether anything is ever to be realized from the bank itself is ques- 
tionable ; but if anything ever should be, the legislature I hope will take 
care that it be faithfully paid over to the bond holders. It is thought 
if the state, through her legislature, meddles in any way with the assets 
of the bank, she thereby imposes some sort of obligation upon herself to 
pay the bonds. The position is not well taken. There is but one way 
in which the state can now be obliged to pay these bonds, and that is 
to pledge her faith in the manner prescribed by the Constitution for the 
redemption of this loan or debt. 

The state in her sovereign capacity may see that justice is done be- 
tween an incorporated bank within her limits and its foreign creditors, 
and this she ought to do. 

If an improper use is made of one man's name in obtaining another's 
goods or money, and it is in the power of the man whose name has been 
thus fraudulently used to restore to its proper owner the goods or money 
so obtained, he ought to do it. But if he attempts to do so and fails, it 
would be a most extraordinary code of law or morals that would thence 
constrain him to advance the amount from his own pocket. Let the 
state put forth the strong arm of her authority to restore whatever 
amount of this money may be within her reach, and this being done, she 
is absolved in law, in morals, and in good conscience from all further 
connection with the bank and with the bonds. 

No subject is better understood at home than this, and I should not 
on that account have alluded to it at all, but for the extremely harsh 
and unwarrantable attacks made on the state by citizens of other states, 
and of foreign nations. An impression unfavorable to the motives and 
character of our people has been induced abroad, by whom and for Avhat 
motive I shall not pause to inquire. But when the integrity of my state 
is questioned, and her fair name reproachfully used, whether through 
ignorance, or to eff"ect some extraneous purpose, I will speak as becomes 
a Mississippian ; not as a partisan, but as a citizen deeply interested in 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. - 61 

• 

all that affects my country, will I make at least one effort to roll back 
the tide of obloquy which others are hurling against her. Amid the 
opprobrious epithets of the maligners of my beloved state will I assert, in 
the face of the civilized world, that Mississippi has no more repudiated 
her obligations than has any other state or nation. She has claimed 
for herself the right — (a right which she Avill never surrendei') — to con- 
strue her own fundamental law, and to decide whether debts have been 
imposed on her in violation of that law. This she has done — and this is 
all she has done — this is the head and front of her offending. She is 
sovereign within her limits, and in that sovereign capacity has she de- 
cided this question. She has decided not that she will repudiate her 
debts, but that this is not her debt, and she spurns alike the carping 
enemies who would menace her, and the pretended friends who would 
seduce her into an abandonment of her position. I need not pursue this 
subject further; — the people have decided it at the ballot-box ; — and hav- 
ing assumed their position in full view of all the consequences which it can 
possibly involve, they are prepared to maintain it with a firmness Avhich 
becomes a free people, conscious of the rectitude of their own conduct, 
unawed by denunciation at home or abroad, and unseduced by the 
eloquence of men sent hither to persuade them to pay debts they do not 
owe. 

While we proclaim to the world our unalterable determination never 
to submit to taxation to pay one cent of this unjust demand, let us also 
proclaim justice to our honest creditors. Wherever there exists a debt 
against the state, contracted in good faith and with a proper regard to 
the Constitution, it must be discharged to the last mill. Of this cha- 
racter do I regard the bonds issued on account of the Planters' Bank ; 
and come what may, the state can never shrink from the payment of 
them. Let prompt and efficient action be taken for their settlement. 
A speedy liquidation of them will afford what every good citizen is 
anxious to see, a fitting opportunity to manifest to the world that in 
rejecting the Union Bank bonds we are actuated by no mean or sordid 
principle of dollars and cents, but by a more elevated impulse — that of 
adhering faithfully to our written constitution. 

If it were not trenching on the official prerogatives of my immediate 
predecessor, I would recommend to the legislature the immediate liqui- 
dation of the Mississippi Railroad Company, and the Planters' Bank, 
and the speedy collection of the sinking fund, with a view to the settle- 
ment of these bonds. I shall be most happy to unite with the repre- 
sentatives of the people in this or any other salutary measure which 
they, in their wisdom, may adopt for the payment of this debt. Besides 
the holders of these bonds, there is another class of creditors who have 
been for a long time knocking at the doors of the treasury for relief. 
I allude to domestic creditors who are holders of treasury warrants. 
These are creditors whose demands cannot be neglected without the 
grossest injustice. It can never be good policy in a state to remain 
long in debt. We must pay tvhat we owe, and there will never be a 
more auspicious moment to begin than the present. For myself, I am 
ready for a vigorous and decisive effort to release the state from em- 
barrassment, and I invite the concurrent action of the legislature. 
Resort to increased taxation will in all probability be necessary. If so, 



62 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

• 

let it be levied with justice and equality, and the people, -whom we have 
ever found ready and willing to bear all needful privations to support 
their government, its credit, and its honor, will submit without a mur- 
mur. But before additional burthens are imposed on articles which 
have hitherto been made the sources of revenue, justice would seem to 
demand the inclusion of many articles not hitherto found in the catalogue 
of taxable property. I would enumerate gold and silver plate, marble 
mantels and costly furniture. No good reason suggests itself to my 
mind why dwelling-houses of great value should not be made the object 
of specific tax. Salaried officers have been made to contribute in other 
states, and why not in this ? Practising physicians and attorneys, clerks 
and sheriffs, and other persons who receive fees and perquisites of office, 
might pay a portion of those receipts to the support of government. 
Doubtless the legislature may add many other articles to those I have 
enumerated ; and if after all these there should be a deficit in the revenue, 
it must be raised by an increased tax upon the property of the citizens 
generally. 

We are admonished by the situation of the treasury, and the constant 
demands of our creditors, to retrench our expenses and to adopt more 
rigid laws for the collection and safe-keeping of the public revenue. 
Biennial sessions of the legislature of short duration, will be very effec- 
tive in reducing the expenses of the government, and I doubt not the 
legislature will devise other means equally as much so. 

Our state was the first in the Union, and perhaps in the civilized 
world, to elect judicial officers by popular suffrage. It was a bold 
experiment in the science of government, and by some it has been con- 
demned in unqualified terms, as calculated to corrupt the judiciary and 
endanger the faithful administration of justice. Others are still in 
doubt whether so great an innovation on the usual mode of appointing 
judges will not in the end be productive of evil. But much the greater 
number of our people are satisfied with the system, and wish to see it 
perpetuated. I was among its earliest advocates, and experience has 
strengthened me in my conviction of its superiority over all others. It 
is yet worthy of consideration, whether it may not be made more perfect 
in its detail, and I submit the propriety of so amending the Constitution 
and statute laws regulating elections, as that all judicial officers and 
others, not political in their character, may be chosen at a time different 
from that at which your members of Congress and governor, and other 
political functionaries, are elected. Such an alteration, besides remov- 
ing judicial elections beyond the influence of temporary political excite- 
ment, would often relieve the elector from the perplexity of voting at 
once for some twenty persons or more for office, with whose qualifications 
or fitness for the station sought he is profoundly ignorant. 

As intimately connected with the future glory and happiness of our 
state, the subject of education, more perhaps than any other, challenges 
our deepest consideration. Where is the seminary fund ? is a question 
often asked but never yet satisfactorily answered. To members of th 
legislature let me say, our common constituents will expect of us some 
account of this munificent fund, and a speedy application of it to the 
great purpose for which it has been set apart. The day which witnesses 
the completion of this magnificent temple of learning, will be a brilliant 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 63 

one in the annals of Mississippi. It will be regarded as the dawning of 
a new era in the history of letters, and as such will be hailed with joy 
by the friends of science throughout the nation. 

Our state will not be appreciated at home, nor sufficiently honored 
abroad, until her educated youth shall acknowledge as their alma mater 
this or some other reputable college within our own limits. The practice 
of sending the youth of the country abroad to be educated, ought to be 
discouraged. The only eifectual means of doing so, is to rear up 
colleges and academies at home, which may successfully compete with 
those of other states. The enterprising founders of Centenary College 
have set a noble example, and one which deserves imitation. Let such 
institutions be encouraged by all proper means in our power, and instead 
of sending our youth abroad to be educated, where they sometimes con- 
tract unfortunate habits, and grow up with false prejudices against home 
institutions and laws, they may be kept at home comparatively under 
the supervisory care of their parents, surrounded by those institutions 
and protected by those laws which it is proper they should be early 
brought to love and reverence. 

Great seminaries of learning will effect but little in that general 
diffusion of knowledge so absolutely essential to the happiness of man 
and the prosperity of government. In monarchical governments where 
the liberty of the people is considered destructive of government, the 
greater the ignorance the greater the safety, is a popular motto. But 
here, where all political power is inherent in the people, there can be no 
calculating the advantage of education, nor telling the countless bless- 
ings — political, social, and religious — which it may dispense to all parts 
of the country. Some of our sister states, with a singular tardiness in 
widening the bounds of human liberty, still cling to the exploded idea 
that a man's capacity for self-government may be measured by the 
length of his purse, and hence give to the ignorant man of fortune the 
elective franchise, while they withhold the same inestimable privilege 
from the educated poor. Thanks to a generous people, no such blot is 
allowed to rest on the escutcheon of Mississippi. If the sixty years' 
experience which we have had in the science of government has demon- 
strated anything, it has shown that man is best governed when he 
governs himself. I would knock off the shackles and give to freemen 
liberty in its broadest sense. But I would extend the blessings of educa- 
tion to every one, that every one might read and understand the impor- 
tance of using that liberty for their own safety and for the advancement 
of their country's glory. I cherish it, fellow-citizens, among the most 
ardent wishes of my heart, that the day may yet come when every white 
adult in the state of Mississippi may at least be enabled to read and 
write. For this universal education Ave are to look to common schools, 
and not to those great seminaries, where the more elevated branches of 
polite literature are taught. I will not dwell on the advantages of such 
schools. It is to be hoped, however, that an enlightened assembly, 
legislating no less for the future than for the present generation, will 
not neglect a subject which forms the substantial basis of our social happi- 
ness and political prosperity. If my advice could avail anything, it 
would be freely given in favor of a general system of common schools, 
which should be open to all, and at which the poor should be educated 



64 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

gratis. That some such scheme, combining at once the convenience and 
economy of the New England system, will be brought forward, I sincerely 
hope and believe. No more advantageous field than this need be wanted 
by that man who wishes to exercise a laudable ambition, or to leave a 
name that shall live after him. I venture the prediction, that the man 
who brings forward, and carries successfully through, a well digested 
plan of common schools, 'will erect for himself in the hearts of his 
countrymen a monument more lasting than marble — as enduring as time 
itself. 

It should be the studied purpose of all who legislate, so to regulate 
the internal policy of the state that the blessings of government may be 
dispensed Avithout stint and without partiality. The policy of every 
nation should be to secure the happiness and prosperity, and with them 
the affections, of its people. Hence, every system Avhich tends to 
paralyze the energies of any class, of our citizens ought to be abandoned. 

Industry should be encouraged. Labor, when properly employed, 
may always be relied on as a substantial source of national wealth. 
Whatever tends to divert the laboring man from his pursuit, or to 
degrade his occupation, should never be persisted in. Repeated com- 
plaints have been made by mechanics, that convict labor in the peni- 
tentiary was so employed as to conflict seriously with their pursuits, and 
to bring the mechanic arts into disrepute. Having at all times an 
anxious desire to relieve the oppressed, and to encourage such as are 
pursuing an honest livelihood, I doubt not the immediate representatives 
of the people will speedily inquire into the causes of these complaints, 
and apply such salutary corrective as shall at once satisfy the complain- 
ants and promote the public interest. I tender my hearty co-operation 
in such a measure. 

Among the most delicate and responsible trusts confided to the execu- 
tive, is the pardoning power. Feeling that this power of arresting the 
judgments of the courts, was conferred for the purpose of staying the 
hand of the executioner, and giving life and liberty to the unfortunate 
accused in extreme cases only, and not for the purpose of being exercised 
at discretion, I shall govern myself accordingly ; and however much my 
personal sympathies may be enlisted for the unfortunate convict, or his 
still more unfortunate friends, those sympathies will not be allowed to 
arrest me in the faithful discharge of my official duties. I repeat what 
I have hitherto said, that when courts and juries convict, the law will be 
allowed to take its course, except in extraordinary cases — as when, for 
example, neAV facts, important to the defence of the accused, are elicited 
after conviction and sentence. Any other course would tend to defeat 
the ends of justice, and make the execution of the criminal law depend 
on the will of one man. 

Believing that the immediate representatives of the people constitute 
the source through which their Avill ought to he expressed, I shall be 
most happy to find it always compatible with my sense of duty to concur 
in such measures as they may think proper to adopt. But as the veto 
power was given to the executive to check unconstitutional and im- 
provident legislation, it will be exercised for that purpose, should it, in 
my opinion, unfortunately become necessary. Relying, however, with 
the fullest confidence on the intelligence, virtue, and political forecast 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 65 

of the legislature, I will indulge the pleasing hope that no such neces- 
sity will arise during my continuance in office. 

I have abstained from any expression of opinion in regard to national 
politics, for the reason, among many others, that I find in our domestic 
household more that requires attention than we shall find time to dispose 
of. There is one subject, however, which, being viewed in a particular 
aspect, is so intimately connected with the prosperity of our state, the 
perpetuity of her institutions, and, I may add, of her existence as an 
independent member of the confederacy, that I will be pardoned for 
briefly adverting to it. I mean the annexation of Texas to the United 
States. Already has it been hinted in the diplomatic circles of another 
country, that the ambassador of a powerful nation had been authorized 
by his court to offer independence to Texas, on conditions which, if 
accepted, could not fail to affect seriously our dearest interests. These 
conditions are said to have been the total abolition of slavery in that 
republic. I respectfully submit whether there is not just reason to 
apprehend that a country like this, worn down by the fatigues and 
turmoils of a protracted war, and constantly menaced by a formidable 
enemy, may not be induced, when all other efforts at peace have been 
tried in vain, to close with overtures like this, and especially if the pro- 
position comes, as it most likely will, gilded over with the additional 
proposition to pay the residents of Texas a fair compensation for their 
slaves. Annexation under any circumstances, is desirable.^ So long, 
however, as Texas maintains her independence, and adheres to her 
present form of government, it is not iyidispensahle, especially if she 
repel, as I trust she ever will, with becoming energy, all attempts to 
unsettle her domestic policy on the subject of slavery. But if the ques- 
tion shall arise, whether the United States and Texas shall constitute 
an integral government, or Texas become a British colony, no friend of 
the Union can hesitate as to the course which imperious necessity Avill 
require him to pursue. 

I will not doubt the patriotism of Texans, nor call in question their 
friendship for this country and its institutions ; but self-preservation is 
the first law of our nature, and may not Texas, after years of continued 
disturbance and apprehension, without money, and almost without 
friends, be constrained even against her inclination to accept terms like 
these, in the vain hope of preserving her identity among the nations 
of the earth ? And shall we stand idly by, whilst Texas, and with her 
our own institutions, are drawn inch by inch into the meshes of a wily 
nation that has never failed to do us injury ? Shall we stand with our 
arms folded in fancied security, while Great Britain is stealthily advanc- 
ing that destructive policy (abolition) of which she is the national 
impersonification ? Does any one doubt, that if England can sever the 
tie which binds Texas to the United States — if once she can get the 
confidence of the Texan people, she will by negotiation, or hy conquest, 
add that country to her already powerful dominions ? Give England a 
foothold in Texas, and she will plant her colonies there, and become in 
that country what she failed to be in the Indies — your great rival in the 
production of cotton. Annex Texas to the United States, and you will 
have acquired a territory salubrious in climate and fertile in soil, abound- 
ing in all that can make a country desirable. From this territory you 
5 



66 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

may erect independent states that will come into the Union alongside 
of Wisconsin and Iowa, and the yet unsettled territory of the North- 
West, thus preserving that political equilibrium in the Senate of the 
United States, so absolutely essential to the safety of our domestic 
institutions. Annex Texas to the United States, and you give to the 
South a degree of influence in the councils of the nation which will 
enable her to assert her rights with confidence, and maintain them with 
independence, and secure to Mississippi peace in the exercise of her 
I domestic policy, and a proud independence as a separate member of the 
confederacy. More than this, I need not say. If the representatives 
of the people agree with me in these views, they will adopt some suitable 
mode of making their opinions known, and invite the action of Congress 
and of our sister states on this interesting subject. 

In conclusion, fellow-citizens, let us invoke the favor of Divine Provi- 
dence to extend still further His kindness to our country and ourselves. 
That He will enlighten our minds, and elevate our thoughts, and so 
direct our councils, that in all our efforts to advance the great cause of 
human liberty we may be eminently successful. Let us remember that 
no people were ever prosperous and happy, for a long period of time, 
who did not govern themselves by an elevated standard of religion and 
morality, and acknowledge their constant dependence on the Great 
Ruler of the universe. That we may so continue to acknowledge our 
dependence, and that we may always be remembered in mercy in the 
dispensations of His divine providence, is the earnest prayer of your 
humble servant. 



MESSAGE. 

ANNUAL MESSAGE AS GOVERNOR OF MISSISSIPPI, COMMUNICATED TO THE 

LEGISLATURE JANUARY 6, 1846. 

Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives : The 
biennial meeting of the legislature imposes on me the constitutional 
duty of communicating to the representatives of the people the state 
of the country. The past two years has presented a period of very 
general prosperity. The health of the country has been good. Indus- 
try and economy, united with a sound currency, propitious seasons and 
a fruitful soil, have rewarded the toils of the husbandman with a fair 
income. Blessed with tranquillity at home and peace abroad, our coun- 
try has gone forward towards the high destiny which awaits her. The 
people, rejoicing that their destiny has been cast in a land of liberty — in a 
land where the written constitution and the laws throw the aegis of their 
protection alike over the humble and the exalted, have pursued their 
several vocations with profit to themselves and honor to their country. 
With the destruction of the causes which produced them, vice and 
immorality have measurably disappeared, and the Christian's heart is 
gladdened by the manifest improvement in religion and morality. These 
are matters which awaken feelings of gratitude to our Divine Master, 



ANNUAL MESSAGE. 67 

and call forth expressions of devoutest praise. Whilst we witness this 
general prosperity among the people, it is pleasing to know that the 
state has prospered also. She has recovered rapidly from her embarrass- 
ments, and, if not checked by unwise legislation, must very soon throw 
off her shackles entirely. Her financial affairs have greatly improved. 
The auditor's report of January 1st, 1844, exhibited the 
indebtedness of the state on account of Auditor's 

warrants at $614,743,831 

There has been issued from January 1st, 1844, to Janu- 
ary 1st, 1846, 436,508.411 

Making an aggregate of 1,051,252.25" 

There has been paid into the Treasury, on all accounts, 

from January 1st, 1844, to January 1st, 1846, 779,711.58 

Showing a balance outstanding on the 1st of January, 

1846, of \ 271,707.07 

The assessments of taxes for 1845, very little of which has yet been 
collected and paid into the Treasury, amount to $413,772.98. To this 
the Auditor adds $20,000 on account of miscellaneous items, and sub- 
tracts $30,000 for assessing, collecting, and insolvencies, leaving a bal- 
ance of $403,772.98, which will be paid on account of taxes for 1845; 
so that by the close of the present fiscal year, should the tax collectors 
settle with the same promptness that characterized them in 1844, the 
state will have redeemed an amount equal to the warrants that are now 
outstanding, and leave a surplus if no others were issued, of $131,062.91. 
What amount shall be issued in the mean time depends mainly on the 
action of the legislature. I have been congratulating myself that the 
sum would be unusually small. There are but few private demands 
against the treasury, which will require appropriations, and I am not 
aware that the public interest Avill need any important outlay of money 
beyond the ordinary expenses of the government. The legislature has 
doubtless imbibed the prevailing sentiment of the age, that economy is 
the greatest and best virtue with states, as well as with individuals — and 
it will therefore limit the appropriations to such objects as are indispen- 
sable. 

Of the auditor's warrants outstanding on the 1st inst., $159,716.68 
is in the form of funded scrip, not payable until after January 1st, 1847, 
and may therefore be placed in the account of the next year. Estima- 
ting the expenses of the legislature at $60,000 and the state government 
at $125,000, I set down the sum necessary to be provided for the pre- 
sent year, as follows : 
Auditor's warrants issued prior to January 1st, 1846, not 

funded, or funded and due in the year 1846, . . $105,845.09 

Expenses of the legislature, 60,000.00 

State government for 1846, 125,000.00 



Total, $290,845.09 

It will be seen that these are items of indispensable necessity, and 
must be provided for. They leave a surplus of $113,927.86 on the first 
of January, 1847. There has been paid • into the treasury, at various 
times, on account of the seminary fund, $79,548.76, which drawing by 
law an interest of eight per cent, amounts now to $103,068.40, and there 



68 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

has been paid on account of the sinking fund ^84,000. It is so palpably 
just that these items should be speedily adjusted with the public credi- 
tors, that I feel at full liberty to press them on your attention. 

The first payment should be made to the seminary fund. This insti- 
tution has been located at Oxford, in Lafayette county, where a suitable 
site has been procured for the buildings. The trustees held a meeting 
' in July, 1845, and subsequently furnished me with printed copies of 
their proceedings, which I herewith transmit to the legislature. An 
appropriation will be necessary to enable them to erect their buildings. 
Economy should be observed in their construction, convenience and 
durability being consulted rather than beauty and ornament. I recom- 
. mend that the sum set apart for building be limited to fifty thousand 
dollars. 

This fund was formerly collected through the agency of the Planters' 
Bank, and by law it was invested in the stock of that institution. It 
was a trust fund, so declared by the Act of Congress making the dona- 
tion of lands, out of which it sprung. The state, as trustee, had no 
authority for investing it in the stock of any bank ; she did so, however, 
and eighty-four thousand nine hundred dollars, with several years' interest 
on that amount, has been lost. The state is, in my opinion, under the 
most solemn obligation to pay it back. It is an obligation, not to Con- 
gress, but to the children within her own borders, for whose especial 
education the fund was set apart. I am fully persuaded that Mississippi 
will never incur the reproacli of withholding justice and the means of 
education from her own children ; and therefore I submit the question 
to you without discussing the state's legal liability. The amount of this 
fund may be stated as follows : 

Amount now in the treasury of the state, . . . $103,068.40 
Lost principal and interest in Planters' Bank, . . 110,000.00 

To be collected — but in safe hands and secure, . . 38,287.93 



Total, $251,356.33 

What disposition should be made of this fund, I propose to speak in 
connection with another subject. 

Within a very few days after the adjournment of the legislature in 
1844, the commissioners of the Jackson and Brandon Bailroad and 
Bridge Company, made an application to me for twenty-five thousand 
dollars of the two per cent, fund, loaned to that company by an act of 
the legislature, approved February 26th, 1842. The period limited by law 
for the completion of the road having expired, and the road being still 
unfinished, I thought the franchises of the company so far forfeited as 
not only to justify, but indeed to require me to withhold the money and 
await farther legislative action. In presenting this subject to the legis- 
lature, it is proper for me to say, that the failure of the company to 
complete the road within the required time, was owing, in a great degree, 
to circumstances which they could not control : not the least among 
these was their disappointment in not receiving the benefits of this loan 
as early as 1843. It will be recollected that the Act of 1842 made the 
loan contingent upon the consent of Congress. Some time after the 
adjournment of the legislature in that year, an agent of the company 
repaired to Washington for the purpose of obtaining that consent, in 



ANNUAL MESSAGE. 69 

wliich he succeeded. For reasons satisfactory to himself my predecessor 
withheld the money. When I came into office I thought the company 
entitled to receive it, and should have directed its payment, but for the 
expiration of the charter. It seems not to have been the fault of the 
company that they did not realize the benefits of the loan, and to that 
extent they are irresponsible for the non-completion of the road. I 
recommend that the $25,000 and such other portion of the two per 
cent, fund, as is necessary for that purpose, be expended in completing 
the railroad from Jackson to Brandon, under the direction of commis- 
sioners to be appointed for that purpose. 

The road forms a link in the great chain which is ultimately to con- 
nect the Mississippi River with the Atlantic, and in that view it swells 
into an importance far beyond anything connected with the mere exist- 
ence of a road from Jackson to Brandon. At the time when Congress, 
at the earnest and repeated solicitations of this state, relinquished the 
two per cent, fund to a railroad from Brandon to the Alabama line, it 
was confidently expected that the link between Jackson and Brandon, 
then in a state of progress, would be completed by other means. These 
expectations have been disappointed. They induced Congress, however, 
to mention Brandon, instead of Jackson, as the starting point of the 
road. The consent of Congress has only been obtained to the applica- 
tion of the twenty-five thousand dollars to this intermediate link. Her 
consent should be asked to the use of so much of the two per cent, fund 
as is necessary to complete the railroad from Jackson to Brandon ; or, 
in other words, the consent of Congress should be obtained for com- 
mencing the road at Jackson, instead of Brandon. And in anticipation 
of this consent being had, the legislature ought at once to make such 
provision as will insure the most economical and speedy application of 
the money. I invite the special attention of the legislature to the seve- 
ral memorials from this state, and the final action of Congress in relin- 
quishing the two per cent. fund. It will be seen that the state asked, 
and Congress relinquished it to this particular road. 

The scheme of connecting the Atlantic with the Mississippi River by 
means of a railroad is one of vast magnitude, and will doubtless engage 
the early attention of the legislature. 

Rejecting the idea that Congress may apply the national treasure to 
improvements which are only local in their character, it is nevertheless 
true, that works which are essential to the " common defence" of the 
confederated states may, and ought to be constructed at the national 
expense. Viewing the contemplated railroad as a work of this character, 
I do not hesitate to advise the legislature to make an earnest appeal to 
Congress to aid in its construction. 

Should the South-western States be invaded, the road, as a means of 
speedy and safe transportation of troops and munitions of war, would be 
found of incalculable advantage to the nation at large. 

The delays and dangers incident to a voyage around the Floridas, on 
the one hand, and the perplexities of tedious marches over land on the 
other, would be avoided. Army supplies, instead of being sent down 
the river when the waters are low and the delays great, could be for- 
warded from the East, and by the same means the Eastern and Middle 



70 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

States could be supplied "with safety and expedition from the South and 
West. 

If this country is ever invaded by our ancient foe, it is scarcely to be 
doubted that the Southern States will be selected as the theatre of his 
most active operations — how essential, therefore, that the means of 
throwing defence into the country, without danger and without delay, 
should be provided as speedily as possible. 

Should the legislature make an address to Congress on this subject, I 
respectfully suggest that, instead of asking a direct appropi-iation of 
money to this object from the treasury of the nation, they should solicit 
a donation of one-half of all the vacant lands in all the land districts 
through which the road is to pass, to be taken by alternate, quarter, half, 
and whole sections. The magnitude of the work will justify the legisla- 
ture in making the request, and its national consequence will, in my 
opinion, fully authorize Congress in granting it. A donation thus liberal 
will insure the success of the enterprise, and give us the means of 
speedily concentrating all our defences, which will, of itself, be more 
terrible to an enemy than millions of soldiery scattered over the broad 
extent of our country. I pass over the incidental advantages which it 
would give to commerce, and the facilities it would afford in the trans- 
portation of the mail, and the strength which it would give to our band 
of union, by bringing the remote parts of the country closer together, and 
intermingling, as it were, the citizens of Texas with those of New England. 
Apart from these considerations, Congress should make the grant on other 
grounds. If the road is completed the remaining lands must be greatly 
appreciated in value ; and it appears to me that if Congress, by apply- 
ing our moiety of the public domain to an object of great national 
importance, can increase the value of the remaining half five fold, or even 
two fold, it is not only competent for her to do so, but that she is called 
upon by the highest considerations of public policy and public justice to 
make the grant. 

At what point the railroad approaching from the Atlantic, should 
strike the Mississippi River, must be left, of course, to the decision of 
those who furnish the means for its construction. It may not be amiss, 
however, for us to suggest the reasons why Vicksburg should be selected 
as the most proper point. In the first place, the road from Vicksburg 
to Jackson is completed; it is, to be sure, in the hands of a private 
company, but the construction of the road is the question of primary 
importance, to whom it shall belong is only secondary. In the second 
place, the grading on the line from Jackson to Brandon is completed. 
In the third place, a survey of the route from Brandon to the Alabama 
line has been made, and the cost of constructing this part of the work 
estimated at only $1,083,428 ; and fourthly, the two per cent, fund, 
amounting to within a fraction of three hundred thousand dollars, has 
been appropriated to this road. Is it assuming too much, to say that 
Mississippi, in asking the relinquishment of this fund to this particular 
object, and Congress in granting it, decided that Vicksburg should be 
the point where the road is to intersect the river? The two per cent, 
fund, in the state of Alabama, amounts to $232,000, and one-half of it 
has been relinquished to the construction of the road through that state. 

The five hundred thousand acres of land given to this state for works 



ANNUAL MESSAGE. 71 

of internal improvement by the general government, has been located 
by commissioners appointed for that purpose, as have also the Chickasaw 
school lands, amounting to one hundred and seventy-four thousand acres. 
I have procured a map of these lands to be made at the office of the 
United States Surveyor General. For special reasons I have not deemed 
it prudent to have all the lands registered, though they have all been 
located. There are about thirty thousand of the five hundred thousand 
acres not yet registered, and therefore not exhibited on this map.^ 

The present is not, in my judgment, a propitious season for bringing 
these lands into market. So far as relates to the school lands, I doubt 
if good policy does not forbid the state's parting with the freehold at 
any time. The lands should be leased for short terms, not exceeding 
fifteen years ; and the rents and profits paid into the treasury of the 
state, to the separate account of the school land in the Chickasaw coun- 
ties, and be used for that purpose and no other. 

Whether the state should grant pre-emptions to settlers on the five 
hundred thousand acres of her lands, is a question on which I defer to 
the superior judgment of the legislature ; and whilst I do not recommend 
it, I shall not feel at all at liberty to withhold my assent, if the legisla- 
ture, on mature considei-ation, deem it right, especially if a proper esti- 
mate is placed on the value of the land, and care is taken to exact prompt 
and rigid payments from pre-emptors. The state should adhere as closely 
as possible to the cash system. My experience has been that the less 
she deals with the citizens on a credit, the better for both parties. 

The acquisition of Texas, and the tide of emigration to that country, 
together with a prevailing mania among planters to embark in the pro- 
duction of sugar, must, of necessity, depress the value of cotton lands in 
this state for some years to come. Should the legislature, contrary to 
what I think is the policy of the state, determine to hurry these lands 
into market, I recommend, that they be classed, into first, second, third, 
and fourth classes, and offered at public sale on due notice, at a mini- 
mum of two, four, six, and eight dollars per acre, for cash ; or else that 
the whole be offered at a minimum of eight dollars the acre, and the 
price graduated to seven dollars the first year thereafter, to six the 
second, and so on, down to one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. 

When it is recollected that these lands have been selected in small 
bodies and with great care, and that they are now the best uncultivated 
cotton lands east of the Mississippi river, it will appear, I think, that 
these prices are not too high. It is certain they will command such 
prices after a few years. The sales being over, an office should be 
opened, and the lands not disposed of at the general bidding should be 
off"ered at private entry, and at the prices just stated. At whatever 
time and at whatever price the lands are sold, I strenuously urge upon 
the legislature to order them sold for cash only ; and that the first pro- 
ceeds be used in reimbursing to the treasury the amount of money 
expended in locating them. 

Selling on a credit will encourage combinations to buy on speculation, 
and if the speculations fail, as they most likely will, the state will find 
herself harassed with multitudes of perplexing lawsuits, in most of which, 
she will be unsuccessful ; and in the end the good debts will be sunk in 
fruitless eff'orts to collect those which are bad. As familiar examples, 



72 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

I may cite the sinking fund, the seminary fund, and the Jackson town 
lot fund. 

The projected levee on the east bank of the Mississippi river, com- 
mencing at the Tennessee line and terminating at the mouth of the 
Yazoo, is a work to which I invite your attention. The question of its 
practicability is placed beyond question by the report of the Topogra- 
phical Engineer, submitted to the legislature in 1844. He estimated 
' the cost at $88,883.47. This will be found, I apprehend, too small a 
sum ; but if the cost should be twice, or even thrice that amount, the 
sum would then, not be commensurate with the value and importance of 
the improvement. When two or more parties are jointly interested in 
the completion of a work, it should be constructed by their joint efforts. 
The state of Mississippi has five hundred thousand acres of land, a small 
portion of which is now subject to overflow, and would be protected 
by the levee. She has a much larger quantity which would be appre- 
ciated in value by its construction, because it would render access to the 
Mississippi river easy, safe, and expeditious. 

The United States has about one million of acres in like condition, 
except that a much larger proportion is subject to inundation ; much of it 
to a great depth, and always at that season of the year which to the plan- 
ter is indispensable*. The lands are therefore, without value. It is 
scarcely to be doubted, if Congress was accurately informed as to the 
present condition of these lands, and what would be their worth, if res- 
cued from overflow, a liberal and enlightened policy would be pursued. 
It is therefore advisable to lay the facts in an authentic form before 
Congress, and ask her to relinquish for that special object alternate sec- 
tions of all unsold lands on the east side of the Mississippi river, as far 
back as the hills, and between the Chickasaw line and the mouth of the 
Yazoo river. This may occasion some delay in commencing the work, 
but it is vastly more important that works like this should be properly- 
done, and by the proper parties, than that they should be done expedi- 
tiously. The benefits which individuals owning lands on the margin of 
the river will derive from the completion of the work, will justify the 
state in calling on them to make contribution. 

I do not feel impelled by any present pressing necessity, to urge you 
to commence this levee immediately, and especially if it is to be done at 
any great sacrifice ; but it should be a leading and paramount object 
with the state, to have it completed at no distant day, and the legisla- 
tion of the country in regard to its public lands should be shaped towards 
that end. Should the legislature deem it advisable to commence this 
and other works of improvement within any short time, I advise the 
purchase of slaves for that purpose. I am satisfied if planters can culti- 
vate their lands to greater profit with slave, than with free labor, the 
state can, with equal advantage, prosecute her improvements with the 
same class of labor. She must, however, to do this, employ overseers 
who are accustomed to manage slaves, and introduce the same economy 
which prevails on well regulated plantations. 

These suggestions may be considered as applying to the works to be 
done in grading and getting timber for the eastern railroad, and such 
other works as are commenced by the state. On this subject I have 
the honor to transmit a letter from the Hon. John P. King, President 



ANNUAL MESSAGE. 73 

of the Georgia railroad, which will tend, I think, to sustain the view that 
I have taken. 

Before any contracts are made, or the work commenced, either on 
the levee, the road or elsewhere, the state should acquire the right of 
way through the whole route ; otherwise she will be imposed upon by 
the avaricious and selfish through whose possessions the works are to 
pass. 

If these views meet the legislative sanction, I further recommend that 
proposals be issued to hire laborers who shall be paid wages to be speci- 
fied by laAV, in lands at a fixed valuation. I have thought it reasonable 
to suppose, that planters and others owning lands on the margin or near 
the Mississippi river, seeing that the state had the means, and was 
prosecuting the work with a determined spirit, would gladly aid in its 
speedy completion, when thereby the lands which they now own, are 
made more valuable, and those which they take in payment for their 
work are increased in worth by the labor they expend in buying them. 

The interesting subject of education has engrossed a large interest in 
the public mind for some years past. It must be gratifying to the patriot 
and philanthropist to witness the unanimity with which it has been 
espoused ; and if the legislature responds, as it doubtless will, to the 
prevailing public sentiment, the imperative command of the constitution, 
that " schools and the means of education shall for ever be encouraged in 
this state," will no longer go unheeded. " Knowledge," in the lan- 
guage of the constitution, " being necessary to good gov-ernment, the 
preservation of liberty, and the happiness of mankind," no arguments 
need be resorted to, to convince the representatives of a free people, 
that it is their duty to encourage its general diffusion. 

Let it be borne in mind that the boys who are now growing up, too 
many of them in ignorance and vice, must in a very few years take our 
places, and become controllers of our country's destiny ; and let us not 
disguise from ourselves the stubborn fact that the ignorant and vicious of 
these, under our forms of government, must be as potential at the ballot 
box, for good or for evil, as the most learned and virtuous ; and I am 
fully persuaded, we will employ all the means in our power, to educate 
them — to direct them in the ways of " religion, morality and knowledge," 
and thus quicken their devotion to their country. 

Benefits are not priceless. If we expect to enjoy the blessings of edu- 
cation, or to transmit its fruits to our posterity, we must expect to pay 
for them. To the great mass of the people, this declaration will neither 
be surprising or unacceptable. They do not expect knowledge and a 
familiarity with the intricacies of government to spring up spontaneously 
in the minds of their children — good fruit does not grow upon unculti- 
vated grounds, but as thistles and other noxious weeds take possession 
of an unploughed field, so do vice and wickedness spring up in the mind 
which is not trained to God and the country. Government gives pro- 
tection to our lives, our liberty, and our property, but who shall give 
protection to government if we neglect it ? If it be true, that " the 
blessings of government, like the dews of heaven, descend alike on the 
rich and the poor," it must be true, that the rich and poor are alike 
bound to contribute to its support. 

We contribute annually to the support of all the various departments 



74 ALBERT G. BROWN 

of government, to the legislative, the judiciary and the executive ; 
we contribute to the erection of prison houses and temples of justice, we 
contribute to the sacred altar and its divine ministrations, but to that 
which lies at the bottom of them all, and without which the whole must 
become "as a sounding brass and tinkhng cymbal," we contribute 
nothing. 

Education has many votaries but few contributors. What should we 
think of a man who had built a ship and sent her upon a distant and 
perilous sea, laden with rich and costly goods, without insurance ? Yet, 
have we erected a government, ladened it with priceless jewels of liberty, 
and cast it upon the uncertain element of popular will, untempered, as 
yet, by the hallowing influence of education ; and shall we still refuse 
to insure the safety of that government, by refusing to contribute to the 
only means that can give it safety — the education of its people ? The 
rich may say, we have no interest in the education of the poor ! There 
could be no greater or more fatal error. Pride, the love of our offspring, 
the ephemeral pleasure of witnessing the bud of youth nurtured by our 
care, as it expands, and grows, and ripens into manhood, these teach 
the rich to educate their own children, but the higher considerations of 
patriotism — the holier cause of religion and morality — the pure and 
unstained love of human happiness, teach them to educate the poor. 

Having had my attention drawn to this subject, I opened a corres- 
pondence with gentlemen in different parts of the country, with a view 
to elicit information. Their replies, together with such statistics and 
other documentary evidence as I have been enabled to collect, are at the 
service of the legislature. 

Difficulties beset us, I know, but they are difficulties which a prudent 
and discreet management of our affairs will overcome. The sparseness 
of population in many places, has been interposed as a serious objection 
in the way of any general system of schools. Perhaps it is so. If we 
cannot, on this account, employ teachers for a year, we could perhaps 
employ them for a half or quarter of a year. If we cannot do every- 
thing, surely it is not a valid reason why we should do nothing. 

Among other matters connected with this subject, I invite the special 
attention of the legislature to the reports of the presidents of the boards 
of police in the several counties, on the subject of the school lands. 
These reports were elicited by a circular which I addressed them, and 
which is herewith transmitted. It will be seen that all have not 
responded, but enough has been collected to show the manner in which 
the school lands have been treated, and to make it apparent that a radi- 
cal change is demanded. 

After devoting as much time as I could spare to the subject of schools, 
consistent with other official duties, I feel prepared in a spirit of the 
utmost confidence as to its success, to make the following recommenda- 
tion. The state ought to assume the $110,000.00 lost in the Planters' 
Bank, and place it at once on the same footing with the $103,287.00 
now in the treasury. The fund would then amount in round numbers 
to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Two hundred thousand 
dollars of this should be retained as a permanent fund, and the residue 
appropriated to the erection of college buildings at Oxford, as heretofore 
suggested. 



ANNUAL MESSAGE. 75 

This permanent fund should be kept in the treasury, and an annual 
interest of eight per cent, paid on it. This interest (16,000 dollars) 
should be set apart in the treasury at the beginning of every year, and 
kept sacred and inviolable for the purposes hereafter to be named ; and 
here let me remark that the vexation and expense which has attended 
a first collection of this fund, and the heavy and ruinous losses which it 
has sustained in the hands from which it has been slowly wrung, should 
admonish the legislature to take charge of it and keep it secure in 
future. Of the sixteen thousand dollars interest, I recommend that 
eight thousand dollars be appropriated to the annual purposes of the 
college. There should be then established ten academies or high 
schools, at as many different points in the state, to be designated by the 
legislature, having reference to geographical divisions. To each of these 
there should be an annual payment of eight hundred dollars out of the 
remaining eight thousand. Nothing is clearer to my mind than that the 
college will not succeed without the aid of auxiliary schools. These 
schools need not, and indeed should not, be in the immediate vicinity of 
the college, but at such points as to give it the most eflScient aid, and at 
the same time to diffuse the greatest amount of intelligence among the 
people. The language of the Act of Congress in making the grant of 
land from which we derive this fund is that " it shall be vested in the 
legislature of the state in trust for the support of a seminary of learn- 
ing." This language, "a seminary of learning," has been thought to 
limit the legislature to the establishment of one school, and to negative 
the idea that that school could have auxiliary departments. It has 
seemed to me so palpable that the trustees could so act as to carry out 
the great object of the trust, which was the diffusion of knowledge, that 
I have not fallen into what is to my mind a constrained idea of the law 
of Congress. It does not necessarily follow, that because the Act of 
Congress said "a seminary," that it meant there should be one school 
under one roof, or that the "seminary" and all its auxiliary depart- 
ments should be in the same enclosure, or even in the same city or town. 
The spirit of the Act of Congress is carried out by the establishment of 
one seminary, university or college, with such auxiliary departments as 
are necessary to its success. These should be under the same general 
SUPERVISION AND CONTROL, and be located at such points as to be of the 
greatest advantage to the main college, and to the cause of education. 

There must yet be another and a still more useful class of schools — I 
mean the common or free school. The 16th section of land in each 
township, set apart by a wise enactment of Congress for this purpose, 
have been most shamefully neglected. The inattention with which these 
lands have, in many instances, been treated, makes it very apparent, to 
my mind, that whatever system of schools we adopt, must be taken under 
the supervisory control of officers who shall be responsible to the state. 
There must be some general head, and there must be an immediate 
responsibility of that head to the state laws. The people in mass will 
never require responsibility, and they will never act unitedly and con- 
stantly as one man for the common good ; each one will content himself 
with acting for himself, and the general good will go unattended to. 
Of the ten or twelve hundred sections of school lands heretofore, and 
now under the control of the citizens of the township, I have not been 



76 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

enabled to ascertain that one hundred have been well managed. Some 
of them have been trespassed on and denuded of their valuable timber ; 
in other instances they have been leased, and the money has not been 
collected : in many instances it has been collected and squandered : in 
the fewest number of cases have there been free schools kept by the pro- 
ceeds. 

I recommend the passage of a law for the election of school commis- 
sioners in each county, one by the qualified electors of each police 
district, and that it be made the duty of this " board of school commis- 
sioners" to inquire into and ascertain the exact condition of each six- 
teenth section in their respective counties. I recommend the appointment 
of a general school commissioner to reside at the seat of government, 
who shall receive his appointment from the governor and Senate, whose 
duty it shall be to require of and receive from the school commissioners 
in the several counties, semi-annual reports of their proceedings in 
regard to the sixteenth sections and other matters intrusted to their 
charge. 

It should be made the duty of the county commissioners to hold 
meetings quarter yearly, at the county site, and whenever the interest 
arising from the proceeds of a school section is sufficient to pay a teacher, 
it should be their duty to employ a competent man and establish him in 
a school. Wherever there is a surplus, the consent of Congress should 
be obtained to its transfer and use in the next adjoining township in 
which there is a deficiency. They should, without delay, lease all the 
sixteenth sections now undisposed of, and report to the general commis- 
sioner the amount for which each one was leased. 

I farther recommend that all the fines and forfeitures, billiard, retail, 
and other licenses, and all other funds that now go into the treasury 
other than the legitimate taxes on property, be relinquished to a fund 
to be established and called the " school fund." That the literary fund 
be collected from the several counties, and placed in the " school fund ;" 
and I further recommend that a tax of five per cent, on the amount of 
the state and county taxes, be assessed and collected annually, for the 
benefit of the school fund. I estimate that from these sources (not 
including the literary fund now on hand), we will derive 75,000 dollars 
annually. This fund should be placed under the control of the general 
commissioner, to be used in aiding the establishment of free schools. 
The fund to be apportioned among the counties, each according to its 
white population, taking the census of 1845 as the present basis of ap- 
portionment. It should be the duty of the school commissioners to 
establish schools. And whenever the funds of the township were insuffi- 
cient to employ a teacher, a portion of his wages should be paid out of 
the general fund ; and the whole should be so divided that there should 
be a free school in every inhabited township, at least a part of the year. 
If the fund would employ a teacher but for three months, let the school 
be taught for that length of time. 

Such is the plan which I have devised. If it does not meet the legis- 
lative sanction, my hearty co-operation is tendered in any other scheme 
which gives reasonable promise of success. In the final arrangement 
of any plan, much must be included by way of detail which it would be 
inconvenient to embrace in a general recommendation ; and I hope it 



ANNUAL MESSAGE. 77 

may not be considered as steppirig beyond the limits of propriety to 
say it will give me pleasure to aid in the arrangement of these details, 
should the plan which I have recommended be sanctioned by the legis- 
lature. 

The financial condition of the state is such that I entertain a lively 
hope, that the day is not distant when we shall pay an instalment on 
the bonds issued on account of the Planters' Bank, and thereafter meet 
them regularly and promptly as they fall due. I will not deceive you 
or our common constituents with the delusive hope that any considerable 
amount will ever be realized from state stock in the Planters' Bank and 
the Mississippi Railroad Company. Something may be obtained, and 
most certainly every legal and proper means should be resorted to to 
secure as much as possible ; and the legislature ought especially to ab- 
stain from any act which could by the remotest possibility endanger the 
state's interest in either of these institutions. It is idle, however, to rely 
on the assets of these corporations to meet the bonds. It is unjust to 
require holders of these bonds to await the final settlement of the bank's 
affairs for their proper dues. 

I have not permitted myself to doubt that the state would, at the 
earliest period consistent with her engagements to other creditors, com- 
mence the payment of these bonds. They have been thrown upon us 
unexpectedly, and hence we have not been prepared to meet them. The 
large dividends declared by the Planters' Bank for many years, and 
the supposed solvency of the railroad company, during its brief but 
unfortunate career, lulled the public mind into security. The sudden 
explosion of both these institutions startled the people with the unlooked 
for intelligence, that a fund of two millions of dollars had, in a great 
measure, been lost, and that a heavy debt had, in consequence, been 
thrown on the treasury for payment. They have not shrunk from their 
legitimate responsibility, and they never tvill. I speak confidently, 
because in 1843 I maintained the state's liability to pay this debt, and 
the people sustained me. In my inaugural speech I reiterated my 
opinions, and they have ever since been undisguisedly proclaimed, and 
the people have again elected me by a greatly increased majority. 

The first provision made by the legislature for the issuance of these 
bonds was in 1830. By the 1st and 7th section of an act chartering 
the Planters' Bank, approved February 10, 1830, and by the 4th and 
5th sections of an act, supplemental thereto, approved December 16, 
1830, the faith of the state was pledged, and provision made for issuing 
two millions of dollars in state bonds. 

In pursuance of these sections the first 500,000 dollars of six per 
cent, bonds, were issued and sold in 1831. (See Doc. herewith trans- 
mitted.) It has been intimated that these bonds were unconstitutional, 
and the reason assigned, is that the 16th section of the Act of 1818, 
which was supplemental to that of 1804, chartering the " Bank of Mis- 
sissippi," pledged the faith of the state, that "no other bank" should 
be established in this state during the continuance of the aforesaid cor- 
poration, " and that in derogation of this pledge, the Planters' Bank 
was established;" and that by the 1st and 7th sections of the charter, 
and 4th and 5th sections of the supplement, these bonds were issued. 
I think it may be well questioned whether the legislature of 1818 did 



78 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

not transcend its powers in undertaking to guarantee the exclusive 
right of banking in the state to a single corporation, for a series of 
years. There was nothing in the constitution of 1817 expressly giving 
this right, and the legislature of 1818 was assuming too much, perhaps, 
when it undertook to forestall the action of each subsequent legislature 
to the year 1834, when the charter of the old bank was to expire. 

On the mind of those who believe the legislature has the power to 
repeal bank charters, the argument that the "Planters' Bank" con- 
• flicted with the rights "of the Mississippi Bank" will fall "as seed 
sown on stony ground." And to those who believe with me, that the 
powers of one legislature are commensurate with those of another, where 
no exclusive constitutional rights are given to one over another, it will 
seem almost conclusive that the legislature of 1818 had no right to 
I assume the exclusive and entire control over the subject of banking, as 
they did for a period of 16 years. 

True, the opinions of gentlemen distinguished for their legal ability, 
have been invoked, and are said to sustain this position. These gentle- 
men may have been wrong. If they meant to say that the issuance of 
the bonds was unconstitutional, it is, to my mind, most palpable that 
they were so. 

• There was nothing in the constitution of 181T which forbid the legis- 
lature to pledge the public faith for a loan of money. They did pledge 
it, and on that faith they borrowed 500,000 dollars, which was invested 
in Planters' Bank stock, on which the state, for many years, received 
the dividends ; and would doubtless have continued to receive them if 
the bank had continued to declare them. I do not now undertake to 
controvert the unconstitutionality of the bank charter ; that is not ma- 
terial to my purpose. The state received the money, and she had a 
constitutional right to receive it in the way she did ; if she invested it 
in the stock of an unconstitutional bank, of her own creation, such in- 
vestment does not, in my judgment, weaken the obligation which she is 
under to pay it back. But the argument of its unconstitutionality, if 
solid, only applies to the first 500,000 dollars. The people of the state 
assembled in convention in 1832 to revise and amend their constitution. 
By the 9th section of the 7th article of the constitution which they then 
made, they imposed limitations and restrictions on the power of the 
legislature to pledge the public faith for loans of money. And now, as 
evidence that they were satisfied with the disposition which had been 
made of the 500,000 dollars, they expressly provided " that nothing in 
this {9th sec. 1th art.,) shall he so construed as to prevent the legislature 
from negotiating a further loan of one million and a half dollars and 
vesting the same in stock reserved to the state hy the charter of the 
Planters' Bank of the state of 3Iississippi." 

It is now suggested that the convention did not mean to weaken or to 
give additional force to the pre-existing obligation incurred by the act 
of 1830. That they did not intend to incur an obligation even to pay 
back the " one million five hundred thousand dollars" which they were 
thus particular in reserving to the legislature the power to borrow. In 
short, that they meant to leave the whole matter where they found it. 
Such a suggestion does but little credit to the wisdom or integrity of the 
men who framed our constitution. They represented the sovereign power 



ANNUAL MESSAGE. 79 

of the state. They stood ahove the law and above all contracts, and 
especially were they above laws and contracts which were unconstitu- 
tional. And if the legislature of 1830, in its zeal to obtain money, had 
been hurried over the ramparts of the constitution, it was the duty of 
this convention, not to leave the matter where they found it ; not to say 
go on and obtain more money by the same unconstitutional means ; not 
to say you shall have power " to negotiate a further loan," but you shall 
have no power to pay back what you borrow — but it was the duty 
of the convention, by every sentiment of national faith, by the loftiest 
principles of honesty and fair dealing, to have abrogated the law, and to 
have forbidden the issuance of any more bonds. Failing to do this, and 
absolutely authorizing their issuance, the convention impliedly legalized 
all that had been done, and rendered the state firmly and fixedly liable 
for the one million five hundred thousand dollars, which it authorized to 
be issued. Let us deal honestly with ourselves, and we shall do no 
injury to others. Our unbiassed judgments tell us that the framers of ^ 
our constitution believed that the first 500,000 dollars had been well 
disposed of, and they intended to obtain and invest one million five hun- 
dred thousand dollars in the same way. 

But it is asserted that one generation cannot bind another to pay a 
public debt. The argument, if plausible^ is not applicable to our condi- 
tion. We are not the posterity of the men who lived thirteen years ago, 
but if we were, I should maintain, that if we transmit to those who come 
after us, our lands and the fulness thereof, it will be no grievous hard- 
ship, if we transmit with them such debts as we cannot, without serious 
privation to ourselves and our families, pay oif and discharge. The 
fairest way, however, to answer the argument that posterity is not bound 
to pay our debts, is to pay them ourselves, and that is just what I 
recommend. 

The first series six per cent, bonds (500,000 dollars) were issued in , 
1831, payable in four instalments of 125,000 dollars each. The first 
was due July 1st, 1841 ; the second will be due the first of July of the 
present year ; the third July 1st, 1851, and the fourth July 1st, 1856. 
The second series five per cent, bonds (1,500,000 dollars) were issued . 
in 1833, and are payable in three instalments of 500,000 dollars each, 
the first on the first day of March, 1861 ; the second March 1st, 1866, 
and the third March 1st, 1871. The interest on the first series was 
paid to July, 1839, and on the second to March 1st, 1839, since which 
time nothing has been paid. It will be observed that an instalment of 
125,000 dollars has been due since July 1st, 1841 ; and it will be found 
on calculation, that there is interest due on the six per cent, to the first 
day of the present month 195,000 dollars, and on the five's 512,500 
dollars, which two items being added to the 125,000 dollars principal 
makes an aggregate of 832,500 dollars principal and interest, due on > 
the first day of this month, (January, 1846.) 

It will be seen that the- bonds draw an aggregate interest of 105,000 
dollars annually, which is payable semi-annually on the first series, in 
July and January, and on the second in March and September, and 
that the principal falls due at periods of five years from one instalment 
to another. If the sum now due was paid, it would require only 130,000 
dollars annually, up to July 1st, 1856, to meet both principal and 



80 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

interest as it falls due in future, and after that time, 175,000 dollars 
annually to March 1st, 1871. It has already been seen that there has 
been paid into the treasury in auditor's warrants, on account of the sink- 
ing fund, 84,000 dollars : this sum, it is confidently expected, Avill be 
increased to 125,000 -(ollars by the first day of July, 1846. 

The legislature need not be reminded that this fund stands pledged 
for the payment of these bonds. Nor do I deem it necessary to ad- 
monish you that no further delay should occur in its payment to the 
bond-holders, than is absolutely required by the embarrassments of the 
treasury. I hope indeed, it may be found expedient to make an appro- 
priation at this session, payable in July next, of a sum sufficient to cover 
the amount of the sinking fund in the treasury at that date. If this 
cannot be done, there certainly can be no reason why it should not be 
paid in July, 1847, as by that time the treasury will have realized the 
revenues for the fiscal year 1846. The state has upwards of 22,000 
acres of land belonging to the sinking fund : it would be well for the 
legislature to make suitable arrangements for selling these lands ; and I 
recommend that the state commissioner be authorized to sell them for 
Planters' Bank bonds and coupons that are now due or for auditor's 
warrants. If properly managed they will go far towards liquidating so 
much of the debt as is now due and unpaid. If the legislature would 
authorize the commissioner to receive bonds and coupons due prior to 
January 1st, 1846, in payment of any debt due the sinking fund, I am 
persuaded it would facilitate collections and be of great advantage to the 
fund and to the state. 

In view of the present condition of the state, I advise the policy of 
paying the principal and interest of her bonds as they fall due in future ; 
and that she apply only the means which I have suggested, and such 
surplus funds as she may have from time to time, to the payment of that 
portion of the debt which is now due and unpaid. 

Being in arrears, it will require an efibrt superior to the means of the 
state, to bring up the entire account at once ; but if she sets out with a 
fixed purpose of meeting the debt hereafter as it falls due, it can and 
will be done. It has been shown that the revenue for the present year, 
will approximate four hundred thousand dollars. The expenses of the 
state government will not exceed 175,000 dollars per annum in future, 
including the interest on the school fund, admitting that my suggestions 
on that subject are adopted. After paying for the erection of the college 
buildings at Oxford, say fifty thousand dollars, and taking up the out- 
standing auditor's warrants, and meeting the economical expenses of the 
government, there will be a surplus this year ; and next year, without 
an alteration in the laws which shall produce a reduction in the revenue, 
there will be a surplus of at least one hundred and seventy-five thousand 
dollars, and thereafter that amount annually, deducting fines, forfeitures, 
licenses and such other items as I have already recommended should be 
given to the school fund. 

It will be seen that with these means, we can pay the bonds as they 
fall due, and have something left to pay on the account now due. If, 
in the end, we receive any considerable amount from the banks, it will 
come in time to pay a portion of the bonds which fall due some years 
hence. 



ANNUAL MESSAGE. 81 

The reduction made in the expenditures of the state government, by the , 
act of the last legislature regulating salaries, &c., will greatly assist us in 
our effort to meet the public debt. It was a wise law, and admirably 
adapted to the embarrassed condition of our finances. The general 
anxiety among men of acknowledged talents, to accept office, is, perhaps, 
the best evidence that the salaries are high enough. 

There may be a still further reduction of our expenses by a proper 
regulation of the circuit court practice in criminal business. One of 
the heaviest charges on the treasury, is the payment of costs where the 
state fails in the prosecution. If district attorneys were required, under 
proper penalties, to be constant in their attendance on grand juries, and 
clerks and sheriffs appropriately punished for neglect of duty, in failing 
to issue or to serve process, it would go far to remedy the evil. 

There should be a day set apart by law for taking up the criminal 
docket, and when taken up, it should be disposed of without intermission * 
or delay. In this way, multitudes of witnesses now detained at court 
from day to day, and finally discharged at the costs of the state, might 
be let off in half the time, and the business of the state be better, be- 
cause more promptly attended to. 

The census taken in 1845, a return of which is herewith transmitted, 
exhibits the aggregate white population of the state at 241,688. In 
apportioning the representation among the several counties, I respect- 
fully suggest that the public interest may be promoted by reducing the ' 
whole number of representatives considerably below what it now is. 
Such reduction will lessen the expenses of the legislative department, 
and expedite the transaction of business, whilst it will not, I am per- 
suaded, detract from the wisdom of legislation, or impair, in the least 
degree, its adaptation to the wants of the people. The Senate, though 
a smaller body than the House of Representatives, has always originated 
one half, at least, of the important business. Its deliberations have 
been marked with as much wisdom and courtesy as those of the House, 
and its business despatched in less time. 

I estimate that the session may be shortened by the proposed reduc- 
tion one fourth, which in a session of ordinary length, will be fifteen 
days. The legislature, with its present number of members, sits at a 
cost of about six hundred dollars per day, or nine thousand dollars in 
fifteen days, excluding appropriations and printing. The pay of mem- 
bers alone, is five hundred and forty dollars a day. If the number of 
members were reduced one-fourth, there would be a saving in this item 
alone, of one hundred and thirty dollars per day, which, in a session 
of forty-five days, approximates six thousand dollars. If the legislature 
thinks with me, that reducing the number of representatives will not 
impair the wisdom or utility of legislation, I am sure they will take 
pleasure in adopting my suggestions as a measure of economy. 

When the people are heavily taxed, they have a right to expect a 
proper and economical use of the money ; you will always be ready, I 
am sure, to devise means of your own, or to carry out the suggestions 
of others in the fulfilment of these expectations. 

Complaints have been made that the taxes are too high. Coming, as 
you do, directly from the people, you are presumed to know more of 
their opinions on this subject than I do. Their will must be obeyed. 
6 



82 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

The people cannot be taxed against their consent. I hope they will not 
lighten their burdens at the expense of the public credit. On this point 
I defer to their representatives, but I should illy discharge my duty to 
them if I did not say that the public credit is not in a condition to be 
sustained under any sensible reduction in the aggregate amount of the 
revenue. If the taxes are equalized in a greater degree, so as to distri- 
bute more justly the burthens of taxation, and yet not reduce the gross 
receipts into the treasury, I will be greatly pleased ; but I should be 
sorrv to witness any legislation calculated to relapse the credit of the 
state into that long and painful disorder from which it is but just now 
recovering. 

The "quo warranto" act of 1843, has been a fruitful theme of con- 
troversy for some time past. Whatever may be said of that act, and 
the objects which it was intended to effect, it is undeniably true, that the 
le<^islature is under the strongest possible obligation to the banks and 
their debtors to pass such laws as will secure them "right and justice," 
without " denial or delay." If it is asserted that a banking corporation 
has forfeited its franchises, the question of forfeiture should be judi- 
ciously inquired into ; and it is the duty of the legislature so to legislate, 
that the inquiry may be had without delay, and without perplexities or 
expense to either party, other than such as may be necessary for the 
full and fair administration of justice. What is to be the effect of a 
forfeiture judicially ascertained, as to the property of the corporation, 
or as to debts due to or from it, is a question properly referable to 
the judiciary, and with which the legislature and executive have no con- 
cern. 

•Unfortunately for the stability of our institutions and the safety of 
society, political communities seldom profit by the experience of the 
past. The lessons which were taught us during the banking mania in 
this state — the deep and vital wounds which were inflicted on the morals 
and good order of society, will be entirely forgotten in the lapse of a 
few years. Whilst the recollection of these events are fresh in our 
minds, it will be well if we make an enduring record of the hostility they 
have engendered to banks and banking ; and to this end I advise an 
amendment of the constitution, for ever prohibiting the establishment of 
banks in this state. 

A letter from the United States ordnance department is herewith 
transmitted. It shows that from our territorial organization to 1843, 
there have been sent to Mississippi, arms and accoutrements to the value 
of sixty-four thousand dollars. The report of the Quarter-Master Gene- 
ral will exhibit the present condition of these arms. The state is now 
in the annual receipt of four hundred and forty muskets, Avhich, valued 
as they are by the United States, at thirteen dollars each, are worth 
five thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars. The number will 
increase Avith our increasing population. It will be seen that almost all 
the arras heretofore sent to the state have been wasted. The prime cause 
of this has been, that the state has never provided a place for their safe 
keeping. 

I recommend the erection of a public armory in this city, in which all 
arms and accoutrements, not in actual use, shall be kept. The greater 
portion of the work may be done by the penitentiary convicts, so that 



ANNUAL MESSAGE. 6S 

the actual outlay of money need not be great. This being done, there 
should be appointed a quarter-master and an assistant, to superintend 
the armory and take care of the public stores. All volunteer compa- 
nies now having, or hereafter receiving arms from the state, ought to 
renew their bonds every year, and give such additional security as the 
quarter-master may require. 

I believe the public interest requires, and the public voice demands, 
a change in the militia system. The trainings, under the present law, 
are attended with a loss of time and annoyance to the people, greatly 
exceeding any real benefit which they derive. It is a very great mis- 
take that militia musters prepare the people for actual service, or train 
them to a soldier-like use of arms. They go to muster for the most 
part, to amuse and be amused, regarding the whole affair as an expen- 
sive farce ; they perform their parts for the fun, and not the profits of 
the play, and are always glad when it is over. 

There are now in this state about forty-five thousand persons subject 
to militia duty. If they are required by law to drill only four days in 
each year, there would be lost in time 180,000 days. Time, to a man 
of enterprise, is money. Suppose each day to be worth fifty cents, and 
there is an aggregate loss of ninety thousand dollars. The law, such 
as it is, I have endeavored to see enforced, I regret to say with ill suc- 
cess. The people are opposed to it, and many of them can neither be 
persuaded or coerced into obedience to it. Some obey and some do not. 
This engenders a spirit of jealousy, as to the injustice and unequal ope- 
rations of the law. The disobedience of some encourages disobedience 
in others, and a disregard of law in one respect begets a disregard of it 
in another. Under such circumstances it becomes a question for your 
serious deliberation, whether you will not abandon the present, and 
adopt some new system. 

Looking to the possible disturbance of the country, by invasion or 
internal commotion, the present law ought not perhaps to be repealed. 
It might be suspended in its operations and put in force on any sudden 
emergency, by an executive proclamation. The active military force 
should consist of one volunteer company in each regiment, which con- 
tains five hundred or more efficient men. These companies should be 
required to train at least one day in every month ; and for this service, 
the members should be exempted from road and jury duty. 

The public arms should be distributed to them from the state armory 
by the quarter-master general, who should also be a competent drill 
master ; and it should be made his duty to visit each company once in 
every year, under the direction of the governor, and drill two entire 
days. For this purpose, the quarter-master should receive a competent 
salary ; and his assistant, whose duty it should be to superintend the 
business of the armory, in the necessary absence of the quarter-master, 
should have a fair compensation also. It will be seen on examination, 
that the money drawn from the treasury, under this system, will be 
less, by some hundreds of dollars, than under the system which now 
exists. 

The companies should contain sixty-four members each, eight to be 
taken from each captain's beat in the regiment, and in case more than 
eight should ofier, let it be determined by lot who should serve. Va- 



84 ALBERT G. BROAVN. 

cancies should be filled by election ; and if at any time a company was 
found to have neglected its duties grossly, either in not drilling or not 
taking care of its arms, or in failing to enforce the discipline of the 
corps, such companies should, on the certificate of the drill master to 
that efi"ect, be disbanded by the governor. 

The employment of the penitentiary convicts in the mechanic pur- 
suits, continues to be a cause of complaint. These complaints are well 
founded in some respects, and demand, as they will doubtless receive, 
your respectful consideration. I have collected sundry reports and 
other papers on this subject, which I have the honor herewith to transmit 
to the legislature. I invite special attention to the letters from the Ohio 
and Louisiana superintendents of state prisons. It seems evident in a 
country like ours, which consumes so large a quantity of woollen and 
coarse cotton goods, that they may be manufactured to advantage; and 
I do not therefore hesitate to invite the legislature to embark a portion 
of the labor of the prison in the fabrication of these articles, with a view 
to its ultimate conversion into a manufacturing establishment should the 
experiment succeed. If the state purchases slaves to carry on her public 
improvements, provision should be made by law for having them clothed 
from the penitentiary. 

The report of the inspectors and ofiicers of the penitentiary, for the 
year 1844, exhibits the net profits of the institution at $1337, and the 
■ report for 1845, shows the net profits for that year to have been $5110.02. 
Both reports are herewith sent to the legislature. 

We have never provided an asylum for lunatics, nor a refuge for the 
insane, in this state. The best feelings of humanity require that this 
omission should be supplied. I recommend that suitable buildings be 
erected, and such other means adopted as are best suited to the condi- 
tion of this unfortunate class. The buildings need not be costly, nor 
the arrangement for the maintenance of the lunatics very extensive for 
some years to come ; both, however, should be equal to the present 
wants of the country. 

The legislature, at its last session, proposed two amendments to the 
constitution ; the first was in regard to slaves, and the second was a 
proposition, in substance, to divide our judicial from our political elec- 
tions. The required notice was given through the public gazettes, in 
both cases, by the secretary of state. The first of these amendments, in 
regard to the slaves, has received the required number of the popular 
votes, and needs only to be inserted, by order of the legislature, to be- 
come a part of the constitution. The second proposed amendment did 
not, I regret to say, receive a constitutional number of votes, and is, 
therefore, lost for the time being. I regard this as the most important 
of the two proposed amendments, and the returns show that it is favora- 
bly regarded by the people ; a large majority of those voting on the 
question, voted for it, but they have fallen short of a majority of the 
whole vote cast for members of the legislature. I recommend that the 
question be re-submitted in 1847. The main object of its friends will 
be attained if it passes then, as, with a single exception, the judges now 
in ofiice, retain their places till 1849. 

Most of the states of the Union have proposed an interchange of laws, 
reports and legislative documents. In the absence of any legislation on 



ANNUAL MESSAGE. 85 

the subject, I instructed the secretary of state to send ours in exchange 
for such as were sent to us. This course, I hope, will meet the sanction 
of the legislature, and that authority will be given to pursue it in future, 
otherwise it will be abandoned. 

Complaints are frequently made that difficulties are encountered in 
procuring the proper acknowledgments of deeds and other instruments 
of writing, in the different states, to be used in this state. The evil has 
been remedied in other states, and may be in this, by the appointment 
of a commissioner to take these acknowledgments, who shall depend for 
his compensation entirely on the perquisites of office, and who shall 
reside at the principal commercial point in the state for which he is 
commissioned. 

The report of the state commissioner herewith transmitted, will bring 
you acquainted with the progress made in the business intrusted to his 
charge. The present condition of the several funds under his manage- 
ment, seems to render it necessary that power should be given to effect 
compromises. I invite your attention to his suggestions on this point. 
It appears to me that the interest of the state will be secure, if the 
commissioner is allowed to make compromises under the legal advice of 
the attorney-general, subject to the approval of the governor. 

I herewith transmit the report of the commissioner of the seminary 
fund, and a communication from the attorney-general. From these 
you will learn the condition of the several matters intrusted to their 
official charge. Communications from the adjutant general and the 
quarter-master general, are herewith enclosed. These reports and com- 
munications make it manifest that greater security should be required 
of those having the custody of the public money and property. I re- 
commend that hereafter all bonds taken for the safe-keeping of the 
public money and property, shall operate as a judgment lien on the pro- 
perty of the obligors. 

The accompanying correspondence with the stockholders and as- 
signees of the Mississippi Union Bank, will acquaint you with the fact, 
that five millions of dollars in state bonds, issued on account of that 
institution, were delivered to me on the 14th of April, 1844. The 
bonds were deposited in the state treasury, and were cancelled by my 
direction. 

On the 21st of February, 1845, I received the resignation of the 
Hon. R. J. Walker, United States senator from this state, and imme- 
diately thereafter tendered the appointment to the Hon. Jacob Thomp- 
son, who declined it. On the third day of November last, I appointed 
Joseph W. Chalmers, Esq., of Marshall, to fill the vacancy, and that 
gentleman is now in the discharge of his duties at Washington, where 
he will remain until a successor, elected by the legislature, is sent on. 

I have the honor to transmit resolutions of the Texan Congress, 
passed June 21st, 1845, tendering to General Andrew Jackson the tri- 
bute of a nation's gratitude. It Avas not given to the venerable patriot 
to receive this tribute. He died at the Hermitage, 8th June, 1845, full 
of years and full of honors. The resolutions are not more honorable to 
Texas than they would have been gratifying to the eminent man for 
whom they were intended, had it pleased Heaven to lengthen out his 
days until he had received them. 



86 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

The perusal of these resolutions awakens in our minds the liveliest 
recollections of a man who has left the impress of his mighty intellect 
on all the interests and institutions of his country. He was ever 
the fast and unchanging friend of Mississippi. Firm and inflexible 
in his purpose, wise in council and terrible in war ; he possessed a 
mind to comprehend and will to serve our wants — his was a heart with- 
out guile, and in his bosom the fires of patriotism never went out. 
Whether in the field, at the red man's council fire, in the Senate or 
chair of state, or in later years, when stricken by time, we see him 
bowing before the altar of the great I AM, his cares, his toils, his affec- 
tions and his energies were given — always given, to his country. He 
has descended to the tomb, but it is left with us to manifest our respect 
and veneration for his name. In token of the deep sense of gratitude 
which we feel for the past political and military services of this great 
man, I respectfully suggest that one of the niches in the rotunda of 
the capitol be filled, by order of the legislature, with his statue in 
marble. And as he was in life purely an American — in mind, body 
and soul, wholly and entirely an American citizen — this tribute will only 
be complete when the work is done by an American artist in American 
marble. 

Resolutions from the different states have been forwarded to me from 
time to time, with requests that I should submit them to the legislature. 
They relate to a great variety of subjects, some of which may require 
your attention. They are submitted to your consideration. 

Of the contingent fund of the executive department, I have 
paid out on account of 1842-3, ..... $421.00 

1844, 3629.39 

'' " " 1845, 2905.85 

for which I shall be pleased to exhibit vouchers to a legislative com- 
mittee. 

A book, of great value in the administration of our probate laAvs, has 
been compiled and published by Ralph North, Esq., of the city of 
Natchez. I recommend that a sufficient number of volumes be pur- 
chased by the state, to supply the several probate courts and the state 
library. 

I have thus, gentlemen, at the hazard of being tedious, given you 
my views on such subjects as, in my judgment, merit your attention. 
The absence of the legislature for two years has permitted a great num- 
ber and variety of subjects to accumulate, the presentation of which, to 
your consideration, has required unusual space. Apologizing for any 
unnecessary prolixity in this communication, I conclude with an earnest 
invocation to the Divine Power so to direct your councils that all your 
acts may redound to the happiness of the people and the glory of our 
common country. 

A. G. Brown. 

Executive Chamber, January 6, 1846. 



SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 87 



SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 

UPON THE COMMENCEMENT OF HIS SECOND TERM AS GOVERNOR, DELI- 
VERED JANUARY 11, 1846, BEFORE THE TWO HOUSES OF THE 
MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE. 

Fellow-Citizens : Honored by you with a re-election to the office of 
Governor, I appear before you a second time, to renew my obligations 
to support your constitution, and faithfully to discharge my duties. In 
doing so, allow me to enter into covenants, again to requite your 
generous confidence, by a continued watchfulness over all your varied 
interests. 

Two years have now passed away since I entered, with trembling 
anxiety, on the high duties to which your partiality had called me. 

You have passed your verdict of approval on my conduct, and I thank 
you — from a heart full and overflowing with gratitude I thank you. I 
enter on a second term with increased anxiety — and with a determina- 
tion, quickened by your approval of the past, still to merit your confi- 
dence, and to retire from your service without having forfeited your 
good opinion. To be chosen from fifty thousand voters, to administer 
the affairs of a sovereign state, is a distinction of which any man may 
boast, but which no one has a right to claim. I have it by your sufl'er- 
ance — it shall be my constant effort to wear it without reproach, and to 
surrender it without dishonor. 

Indulge me, fellow-citizens, in a remark or two touching the present 
attitude of our state, her future prospects, and the means to be employed 
in advancing her to greatness and glory. Proud as I am of Mississippi, 
the home of my childhood, and of my maturer years, I am prouder still 
of her attitude before the world, of the noble bearing which she exhibits 
amid the reproaches and contumely cast upon her. Is she accused by 
bankers and bonders of pestilential and seditious conduct, and of being 
"a ringleader of the sect" called repudiators? She answers as did 
Paul before Festus. " I stand at Cesar's judgment seat, where I ought 
to be judged : to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well 
knowest. For if I be an offender, or have committed anything worthy 
of death, I refuse not to die ; but if there be none of these things whereof 
these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto 
Ceesar." Mississippi is to be judged by her own written constitution ; 
if against that she has offended, she expects to be reproached, but if she 
has not, no man may deliver her into the hands of Jewish or other bond 
holders. She appeals to the constitution. 

This day fifty thousand hearts, scattered over the broad surface of 
Mississippi, swell with emotion, as fifty thousand freemen turn their 
eyes towards this city to behold the actions of their representatives 
assembled here. The state has been maligned and her fair fame traduced 
by those who are ignorant of her cause, or, knowing her to be right, 
refuse to do her justice. She has taken her position, and from it she 



88 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

will not depart. The shafts levelled at her honor fall harmless at her 
feet, because they come not from the hand of justice. Let those who 
are the guardians of her unsullied fame preserve it free from taint or 
blemish. You stood by her in her noble attitude of vindicating her con- 
stitution, in refusing to pay demands contracted in its violation ; stand 
by her with equal firmness in her no less lofty attitude of vindicating 
that constitution still further by paying debts contracted by its approval 
and sanctioned by its language. If Mississippi was called upon by her 
constitution to reject the Union Bank bonds, that same constitution bids, 
her pay those of the Planters' Bank "to the fast mill." I will not ask 
you if it shall be done, because I will not ask you if Mississippi shall be 
dishonored. 

What are the future prospects of our state, and how shall we advance 
her in the highway to glory and renown ? are questions to be determined 
by your action. With a fertility of soil equal to any in the world ; with 
the mighty river of her own name, so aptly termed " an inland sea," 
washing her western border for more than four hundred miles, and bear- 
ing upon its bosom the richest product that ever rewarded the toils of 
man ; with navigable rivers like arteries running from her heart to all 
her extremities ; with salubrity of climate equal to Italy, and a popula- 
tion the bravest and best on God's earth, there is not a land of fairer 
promise, nor one which may aspire to a higher or a more glorious destiny. 
How shall we assist her ? Let a portion of our energies be directed to 
internal improvements. The day Avill come when Mississippi should be 
spanned from east to west by a great central railroad ; when the waters 
of the Mississippi should be fenced in, and the fertile lands on its borders 
be made to throw their rich treasures into the pockets of our people. It 
was improvements like these that added millions to the wealth of New 
York, and gave immortality to the name of Clinton. These improve- 
ments cannot be made the next year, or completed perhaps by this 
generation ; but the natal energy and indomitable perseverance of our 
people will sooner or later carry them out. It is our duty to commence 
them. 

There is a feature in the character of this state which the historian 
cannot pass by in silence. It is the independence which marks her 
conduct. Determining for herself what is right, she fearlessly pursues 
the conviction of her own judgment, regardless of the opinions and con- 
duct of others. She was first to elect judges by the people ; she first 
established a purely metallic currency, and, amidst the taunts and jeers 
of friends and foes, she first stood up in the face of the civilized world 
and refused to pay an unconstitutional debt contracted in her name. A 
state which thus pursues its own inclinations, and which has already 
invested its people with more power than any other in the Union, or 
perhaps in Christendom, should be the foremost in giving universal 
instruction to its people. 

An ignorant multitude, excited by some fancied wrong, and led by 
some daring and popular demagogue, may, in a single hour, commit 
breaches in the fabric of our government which the wisdom and ingenuity 
of ages may not be able to repair. The educated masses are never 
frenzied thus ; appreciating the blessings of liberty, they will never 
commit excesses in its name. Then by every consideration of patriotism ; 



SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 89 

by your love of liberty ; by the devotion which you bear to your offspring ; 
by the safety of your firesides ; and the accumulated wealth of years of 
toil ; by the holy religion of your fathers ; by all that you hold dear in 
this world, or sacred in the world to come, I exhort you to spread the 
blessings of education among the people ! 

The legislation of this country is wisely divided into state and national. 
As a member of the great family of states, we are the victims or bene- • 
ficiaries of national legislation as chance may direct, our voice being as 
one to fifty in her councils. 

Whilst we direct our domestic legislation so as to develope the re- 
sources of our state, and secure to ourselves and our property the bless- 
ings of liberty in a free government, may we not, in earnest and respect- 
ful terms, address our petitions and our remonstrances to the federal 
legislature, so to govern its councils as not to retard us in our onward 
march to prosperity and happiness ? Nay ! whilst others are the recipi- 
ents of governmental favor, may we not ask for justice ? If the tariif 
oppresses us, may we not ask that it be relaxed ? If protection retards 
us, may we not ask that it be removed ? Our cotton whitens every sea, 
and enlivens every port. It is the axis on which the commercial world 
revolves. Shall Congress restrict us to a home market, and call this 
protection? verily, "it is such protection as vultures give to lambs." 
No, let Congress protect us in foreign lands ; let Congress protect us as 
we float on every sea, and barter in every port, and we will protect our- 
selves and our government at home. 

Millions on millions of the nation's money is yearly lavished in 
developing the resources and advancing the prosperity of other states, 
under the specious pretext of " providing for the common defence and 
the general welfare." Mississippi has remonstrated, and her remon- 
strance has not been heard ; she must stand firm on the broad platform 
of the constitution, and as she grows older and stronger she will increase 
in the compass and strength of her appeals for justice. She asks for 
nothing from the nation's coffers to her local works ; but she asks for 
"defences" commensurate with her commercial importance, and such 
as are demanded by her position in the Union, and her contributions to 
the national wealth. Our southern coast for three hundred miles is 
undefended ; scarcely a light-house to direct the storm-beaten mariner 
has been erected. Not an arsenal nor a fort is built on our shores. 
The nation, liberal to others, but parsimonious to us, has not even sur- 
veyed our coast. A harbor equal to almost any on the Atlantic, was 
better known to British seamen in 1812-15 than to American statesmen 
in 1846. Are we members of the same family, or are we strangers to 
the sisterhood of states, that our interests are thus neglected and our 
safety set at nought ? 

If it were competent for Congress to aid in the construction of the 
Wabash Canal, with a grant from the public domain, why may not the 
rivers that span our state in all directions, and bear upon their bosoms 
the rich products of our soil, demand like contributions from the nation's 
bounty ? The Pearl, Yazoo, Black, Tallahatchie, and other rivers, are 
as important to us in their navigation as the Wabash Canal can be to 
any portion of the western people. 

For years and years, Mississippi has appealed, but she has appealed 



90 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

in vain, for a graduation in the price of the public lands. The older 
states have clung to these lands with a miser's iron grasp. Gloating 
over the prospect of gain, they have regarded each dollar wrung from 
the reluctant grasp of the hardy settler, as so much added to their 
coffers. In a lucky hour the principle of graduation was ingrafted into 
the treaty with the Chickasaw Indians. Witness its fruits. In ten 
years, the lands ceded by the Chickasaw tribe, have made more advances 
in population and in agriculture than those in the Choctaw cession have 
in twice that number of years. We have seen the less productive lands 
in the Choctaw cession go uncultivated for almost a quarter of a century, 
and a thrifty population, such as would do credit to any state, driven 
west, where the more liberal government of Texas gave them lands on 
better terms. Our appeals must be renewed. The policy of the United 
States will ultimately induce her to listen to our petitions. 

The feeling is now for war — war with England ; a war in which we 
are to be the greatest sufferers. This war will give impetus to New 
England manufactures, and open new and profitable markets for Avestern 
produce : to us it will bring blight and desolation. Our hearths, now 
happy and cheerful, will become lonely and desolate — our fields, no 
longer covered with a snowy white staple and enlivened by the negro's 
happy song, will grow up in thorns and thick weeds, and become the 
resting place of reptiles and ill-omened birds. Yet are we ready for the 
crisis. Let no one doubt our fealty to the general good — let no one say 
that Mississippi will be unfaithful to the nation's honor — let her but 
know that her cause is just, and she will march to victory or death. 
Let the nation be faithful to herself and us — let her stand by her Presi- 
dent, who " has asked for nothing but what is right," and who has 
akeady sworn, upon the altar of his country's glory, that " he will sub- 
mit to nothing which is wrong ;" and if for this England wages war 
upon us, why, let it come — in God's name let it come. In such a cause, 
there is not a tongue that would not cry for war ; and though houses 
were burned and cities sacked, and though biting hunger should even 
claim us for his victims, still our voice would be for war — and our 
mothers, the matrons of the land, would cheer us in this goodly work. 
Like the mother of the Spartan heroes, they would bid us return from 
such a conflict "with our shields, or upon them." With England must 
ever rest the question of peace or war. We crave an liojiorahle peace, 
and if this be denied us, we ask for war. I pray that justice may hold 
the scales in the hands of England, and that the genius of peace may 
preside over her deliberations. 

With no disposition to trespass further on your indulgence, I conclude 
with an earnest wish that you, the people, may be united in all your 
efforts to promote the public good; and that the counsels of your repre- 
sentatives, under the supervision of Divine Providence, may be directed 
to the union of the states, the happiness of the people, and the per- 
petuity of liberty, and universal peace among men. 

Albert G. Brown. 



FIRST THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION IN MISSISSIPPI. 91 



FIRST THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION IN 

MISSISSIPPI. 

The year eighteen hundred and forty-seven draws to a close. Its 
seasons have been propitious beyond precedent. The toils of the hus- 
bandman have been rewarded with an abundant harvest. Health has 
blessed our state, and general prosperity is everywhere visible. The 
earth has yielded its fruits in rich abundance to supply our wants, and 
minister to our comfort. 

A glowing patriotism, and a steady devotion to the laws and consti- 
tution, under which our state has attained her present enviable rank in 
social order, wealth, population, learning, and religion, continue to per- 
vade all classes of her citizens. 

The beneficent beams of a common Christianity, undimmed in their 
lustre by any collision of sects or interference of legislation, shed their 
rich blessings upon a people capable of appreciating and willing to 
acknowledge their obligations to the Great Ruler of the Universe on 
this behalf. 

Under the smiles of Providence, these states have grown, prospered, 
and multiplied, until they constitute a great and powerful nation ; with 
whom agriculture, commerce, the arts, sciences, and literature, have 
flourished as in no other country in modern times. 

Unhappily, involved in war ! Under the eye of God, by the valor of 
our troops and the skill of our officers, the arms of our beloved country 
have everywhere been victorious. 

These, and innumerable other blessings and benefits of a kindred 
character, constantly flowing upon our state and nation, call for devout 
thanksgiving to the boun,tiful Giver of every blessing. 

I therefore, in obedience to the expressed wish of a large number of 
Christian professors, as well as in pursuit of my own inclinations, respect- 
fully recommend Thursday, the twenty-fifth day of the present month 
(November), to be observed as a day of public and general thanksgiving, 
that the people of the state, abstaining from their ordinary business 
avocations, may assemble in their usual places of religious worship, and, 
uniting with each other, and with their fellow-citizens of many other 
states, may pay their tribute of thanks to the Author of all our spiritual 
and temporal good gifts — and may pour out their hearts to Him that 
his rich smiles may be continued to our state and nation, through each 
cycle of their future existence, and that the abundant blessing of this 
year may be crowned by the termination of the existing war in an honor- 
able and just peace. 

In testimony whereof, I hereunto set my hand, and cause the 
[seal.] seal to be affixed, November 5, 1847, at Jackson. 

A. G. Brown. 
By the Governor. 

Wm. Hemingway, Secretary of State. 



92 ALBERT G. BROWN. 



LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE AS GOVERNOR OF 

MISSISSIPPL 

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Represen- 
tatives : It aflfords me pleasure to greet you on your assemblage at the 
seat of government, with a statement of the improved condition of our 
public affairs, and to congratulate you upon the general prosperity which 
pervades the country. 

Although, from providential causes in 1846, and commercial revul- 
sions abroad in 1847, the profits of the planter have been somewhat 
diminished, his income has been large, and, all things considered, per- 
sons engaged in agricultural and other industrial pursuits have greatly 
prospered. Taxes have been paid without murmuring, and accounted 
for by collectors with unusual punctuality. The treasury, having re- 
covered from its embarrassments, has continued for two years past, 
without intermission, to pay all authorized demands upon it, and now 
contains a surplus of $115,755.41, exclusive of the two and three per 
cent, funds. A summary of the biennial receipts and disbursements, on 
account of taxes, presents the following result : — 
Taxes for 1845, received in 1846, . . $351,278.72 

" " 1846, " " 1847, . . 328,407.16 

$679,685.88 



Disbursed in 1846, $380,437.97 

" 1847, 233,521.73 

$613,959.70 

Excess of receipts over disbursements, .... 65,726.18 
Exclusive of $50,029.21, received from miscellaneous sources in money, 
and $18,000 in Planters' Bank bonds. 

The Auditor's reports show warrants issued prior to and outstanding, 

January 1, 1846, $271,749.71 

Issued in 1846, 227,055.51 

" " 1847, 152,191.21 

Whole amount issued to January 1, 1848, . . . 650,996.43 

redeemed from January 1846 to 1848, . 613,959.70 

Exhibiting warrants outstanding this day, . . . 37,036.81 

Against a surplus in the treasury of $115,755.41, or an excess of 
present means, over present liabilities, of $78,718.60. 

It will be seen that there is a diminution in the revenue for 1846 
(received in 1847), as compared with the year previous, of near twenty- 
three thousand dollars. This is attributable to the revenue law of the 
last session of the legislature. But for that law, the constantly increas- 
ing wealth and population of the state would have augmented the revenue 
near ten thousand dollars in 1846-7, and this sum would, by the same 
means, have been increased each succeeding year ; and thus the state, 
without any sensible effort on the part of her citizens, would, by the 
power of her natural growth, have risen superior to all future embarrass- 
ments. If there is any one thing in which, above all others, the state 



LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE. 93 

may invoke the forbearance of her law-givers, it is in this matter of r 
improvident interference with her revenue laws. It Avill be seen by a 
just investigation of our indebtedness, as compared with our resources, 
that the state has use for even more revenue than would have been 
realized under the law as it existed in 1844-5. 

The assessments for the year 1847, but little of which has yet been 
paid into the treasury, amount to about three hundred and seventy-five 
thousand dollars. After making reasonable deductions for assessing, 
collecting, and insolvencies, the amount to be received will not vary 
much from three hundred and thirty thousand dollars. The expenditures 
for the present year are estimated at two hundred and ten thousand 
dollars. So that the receipts will probably exceed the disbursements 
one hundred and thirty thousand dollars ; which, added to the surplus 
now in the treasury, would give us two hundred and forty-five thousand 
seven hundred and fifty-five dollars and forty-one cents, at the end of 
the year. The state is indebted to the sinking fund ninety-five thou- 
sand dollars, and to the seminary fund about sixty thousand dollars ; ' 
and these sums ought to be provided for. Special reference will be 
made to them hereafter. 

For a more perfect understanding of the financial condition of the 
state, and the practical operations of the existing revenue laws, reference 
is made to the voluminous and very satisfactory report of the late 
auditor, James E. Matthews, Esq., herewith transmitted to the House 
of Representatives. The report has been prepared with great care, and 
presents, in a clear and comprehensive light, the affairs of the depart- 
ment over Avhich the late auditor has presided with ability and fidelity 
for the last six years. It is worthy a minute investigation, and is 
earnestly recommended to the attention of the legislature and of the 
country. 

In estimating the indebtedness of the state, the bonds issued on 
account of the Planters' Bank have been included. My last general 
message conveyed to the legislature and the country my views as regards 
the state's liability to pay these bonds. These opinions have under- 
gone no material change, but a reiteration of them is uncalled for, and 
would be unprofitable at this time. Having long since settled in my 
own mind, that the state is bound by every obligation that the constitu- 
tion and the laws can impose, to pay the debt, it has only remained to 
devise some means acceptable to the people, and not too oppressive, by 
which it could be done. The whole subject has been calmly considered ; 
and however it may be regarded by others, there is, to my mind, but 
one course to be pursued worthy the character of a great and growing 
state, and that is to raise the money by taxation and discharge the debt 
as rapidly as possible. That course is respectfully but earnestly recom- 
mended. The debt now stands as follows : — 

Bonds issued in March, 1833, $1,500,000 

6 per cent, interest from March, 1839, to January, 1848, 794,000 

Bonds issued in July, 1831, 500,000 

6 per cent, interest from July, 1839, to January, 1848, . 255,000 

Total, 13,050,000 

Subject to a deduction of twenty-four thousand three hundred and 



94 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

forty-one dollars, in bonds and coupons, paid into the treasury by the 
state commissioner, or now remaining in his hands, for an account of 
which reference is made to the report of that officer. 

The annual interest on the bonds, it will be seen, is one hundred and 
twenty thousand dollars. The probable receipts for the present year, 
under the existing revenue law, as we have seen, will be three hundred 
and thirty thousand dollars, and the expenditures (including the legis- 
lature) two hundred and ten thousand dollars, so that the sura remain- 
ing in the treasury, after defraying the ordinary expenses, will not be 
sufficient, at the present rate of taxation, to pay more than the interest 
' accruing ; thus leaving the principal and back interest wholly unprovided 
for. It has been proposed to apply the state lands to the payment of 
this debt. My solemn protest is hereby rendered against such a pro- 
ceeding — first : because the land having been given for other purposes, 
we have no right to use it in this way. Secondly : because we ought 
not so to use it if we had the right ; if we owe the debt at all, we owe it 
in money, and ought to pay it in money. Thirdly : because it is just as 
well to levy taxes to pay the bonds as to levy them to pay for the land. 
Fourthly : because if we do not intend to pay for the land after using it 
in paying the bonds, we mean to violate our faith with the United States, 
who gave it for purposes of internal improvement. 

The relation which the sinking fund bears to these bonds may be 
easily explained. The bonds were sold, and the proceeds invested in 
Planters' Bank stock ; the dividends on this stock were pledged foi* the 
redemption of the interest on the bonds, and the interest being paid, the 
surplus dividends constituted a sinking fund. The bank for many 
years declared large dividends, and the surplus accumulated to several 
hundred thousand dollars. The president and cashier of the bank, and 
the auditor of public accounts, constituted a board, authorized by law to 
manage this fund. The legislature, in 1844, being dissatisfied with the 
management of this board, ejected them, and ordered the appointment 
of a commissioner to take charge of the fund. This officer has col- 
lected and paid (most of it) into the treasury about one hundred and 
nineteen thousand dollars, of which twenty-four thousand three hundred 
and forty-one dollars is in the bonds and coupons of the state. The 
remaining ninety-five thousand dollars belongs of right to the bond- 
holders, and its immediate appropriation for their use is earnestly recom- 
mended. The state has no earthly claim to it. If the principal sum 
was not borrowed on the bonds of the state, she can have no claim to 
the dividends accruing from its investments. If it was so borrowed, 
then she contracted a debt in borrowing it, for the redemption of which 
this fund stands pledged. It cannot be, therefore, that any man of any 
party will be found to oppose the immediate application of the amount 
now in the treasury, to the credit of the sinking fund, to the payment 
of the bonds as far as it goes. 

The two per cent, fund amounts to about two hundred and ten 
thousand dollars. Of this sum, one hundred and forty-six thousand 
eight hundred and twenty-three dollars was received by me, under the 
authority of an act of the late legislature, and one hundred and forty- 
three thousand eight hundred and thirty-one dollars and seventy-one 
cents, paid immediately after its receipt, to wit: February 6th, 1847. 



LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE. 95 

The remaining two thousand nine hundred and ninety-one dollars was 
retained by me to meet certain extraordinary contingencies, and will be 
accounted for in another communication. Of the sum received by me 
and paid in, one hundred and thirty-six thousand seven hundred dollars 
was in United States treasury notes, drawing an interest of 5 2-5 per 
centum per annum. The interest increased a fund for which the state 
had no immediate use, and the warrants were more conveniently kept 
than specie ; for these reasons they were taken in preference to gold and 
silver. In addition to the sum in the treasury to the credit of this fund, 
there is justly due it about thirty-five thousand dollars on account of 
Graves's defalcation. It is not probable that any considerable part of 
this sum will ever be recovered. The securities once offered to pay 
twenty thousand dollars on the whole defalcation' of forty-four thousand 
dollars for a final discharge — no one was authorized to compromise for 
the state, and the proposition was not therefore accepted. It is not 
certain that the offer will be renewed, but power to settle by compromise 
should be given to the governor or some other officer : otherwise it is my 
opinion nothing of consequence will ever be obtained. 

The Southern Railroad Company, to which this fund was given under 
certain limitations, by an act approved February 23d, 1846, has not 
been organized in conformity with the act, and no part of the money 
has therefore been used for the construction of the road. It is presumed 
that the company will organize at no distant day, and the fund should 
be retained in good faith, and applied to the construction of the road 
M'henever it can be done with advantage to the public. 

Whether it will be better to direct its immediate application, or to delay 
until other means can be obtained to assist in carrying on the work, is 
a matter worthy of the serious jieliberation of the legislature. My own 
opinion is in favor of the application. The road, if constructed twenty 
miles beyond Jackson, would support itself and pay a small dividend on 
an investment of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Its advan- 
tages to the eastern part of the state would be very great. Should the 
legislature deem the immediate application of the fund inadvisable, it 
ought at once to be put at interest for the future benefit of the road. 
United States six per cent, bonds offer the best security, and its invest- 
ment therein is most respectfully recommended. 

The whole amount of lands registered on account of the five hundred 
thousand acres, is five hundred and twenty-nine thousand six hundred 
and ninety-six acres, and about twenty thousand acres have been 
located by the commissioners of the state and not yet registered. The 
reason for locating so large an excess, is to provide against rejections 
by the secretary of the treasury in consequence of pre-emption rights 
and other conflicting claims. Thus far, three hundred and fifty-four 
thousand and thirty-four acres have been approved by the secretary of 
the treasury, and for various reasons sixteen thousand two hundred and 
seventy-five acres have been rejected. One hundred and ninety-four 
thousand and twenty-five acres have been registered to the credit of the 
Chickasaw school lands. Of this amount one hundred and twenty- 
three thousand six hundred and forty-two acres have been approved by 
the secretary of the treasury, and five thousand three hundred and sixty- 
eight acres rejected. It is not doubted that enough has been secured 



96" ALBERT G. BROWN. 

by location and registration to cover both grants after every reasonable 
deduction shall have been made. Should the lands be offered for sale, 
it must be recollected that the state's title is not perfect except to such 
parcels as have been approved by the secretary of the treasury. As the 
record made by the secretary of state, of the lands registered, is neces- 
sarily rendered incorrect and uncertain by the numerous rejections sub- 
sequently made at Washington, it will be proper to require another 
record of the lands as approved. The corrected lists have been de- 
posited with the secretary of state. The attention of the secretary of 
the treasury has been called to the unapproved locations, and he has 
been requested to dispose of them at as early a day as possible. The 
multiplicity of that oflScer's engagements has prevented his compliance 
with the request up to this time. 

In despite of every reasonable precaution to prevent it, locations have 
sometimes been made on tracts in the actual occupancy of settlers, they 
having neglected to declare their intention to remain, and thereby 
secure pre-emptions according to the act of Congress. The state had 
the legal right to make the location, yet she ought not to take advantage 
of her citizens. Liberal legislation in regard to these settlers is respect- 
fully recommended. 

The opinions advanced by me in my last communication on the subject 
of disposing of these lands, have undergone no material change. The 
five hundred thousand acres can be used for no other than purposes of 
internal improvement. Of such improvements the state is in great need. 
The levee on the Mississippi, and the navigation of our interior rivers, 
are objects worthy of liberal appropriations in land, or in money if the 
lands are sold. The best interest of the state forbids the sale of the 
lands at a price below their actual value. The five hundred thousand 
acres belong to the whole state, and the school lands to the Chickasaw 
counties. No one person has the right therefore to appropriate any 
part to himself without paying a fair equivalent to all the others in 
interest. Should pre-emptions be granted, it should be done with 
caution, and at a price not below the fair value of the land. The legis- 
lature ought, in my opinion, to fix the minimum at eight dollars the first 
year, seven the second, and so on doAvn to one dollar per acre. 

Persons have been in the habit of committing depredations on the 
public lands, which it has been my anxious desire to prevent. Con- 
sidering it within the spirit of our legislation to encourage actual settle- 
ment, it has not been my purpose to molest those who have sought a 
home on the lands of the state ; but other persons, and some of them non- 
residents of this state, have gone on these lands and cut down and rafted 
away large quantities of timber, thereby lessening, and in some instances 
wholly destroying, their value. The law for the punishment of such 
offenders has been found uncertain and insufficient. Your attention is 
called to the subject in the hope that it may receive early and prompt 
attention. 

The state holds the title to large quantities of land bought by her for 
taxes. The owners have manifested little or no disposition to redeem 
it. It Avould be well to direct the auditor, or some other officer, to sell 
it at private entry, giving a quit claim at a price sufficient to pay all 
arrearages for taxes. 



I 

i 



LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE. 97 

The buildings for the State University at Oxford are progressing aa 
rapidly as could be anticipated. And it is expected that the institution 
will be opened for the reception of students sometime during the present 
year. The location is a healthy and pleasant one, in the midst of an 
intelligent and growing population ; and though not the most central 
that could have been selected, all things considered, it presents as many 
advantages as any other point. In view of the constantly increasing 
demand for such an institution, it is sincerely hoped that it will receive 
the support of our people, and the fostering care of the legislature. 
Long years of neglect have dissipated a large portion of its once muni- 
ficent endowment, but enough has been saved from the general wreck 
to establish the institution on a respectable and safe footing. In my 
last general message, the legislature was informed that about one 
hundred thousand dollars of the University Fund had been .lost by an 
improvident investment in Planters' Bank stock. My reasons were 
then given for thinking the state bound to make indemnity for the loss, • 
and, though not now repeated, they are still entertained. The auditor's 
report shows there to be in the treasury, to the credit of the University, 
sixty thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine dollars and seventy-seven 
cents, independent of the fifty thousand appropriated in 1846, for the 
erection of buildings. There is, in the commissioner's hands, detained 
under an injunction in chancery, six thousand six hundred and thirty- 
two dollars, of which his report will give you a detailed account. And 
there is due the fund, in solvent debts not yet collected, twenty-five 
thousand dollars : thus the whole funds of the Institution amount to near 
ninety-three thousand dollars, exclusive of the Planters' Bank debt. It 
is hoped that no further appropriation will be required for building pur- 
poses, and that whatever sum is ascertained to be due the University, 
will at once be put at interest. The state, in my opinion, should retain 
the principal and pay the interest for the benefit of the Institution in 
semi-annual instalments. 

The common school law of the last session has not fulfilled the antici- 
pations of its friends. The report of the secretary of state, herewith 
transmitted, will bring you acquainted with its operations. Its immediate 
repeal, and the substitution of an act more in accordance with the sug- 
gestions contained in my message at the opening of the session in 1846, 
is respectfully recommended. 

The educational wants of the state require the establishment of a 
normal school, where young gentlemen and ladies may be educated for 
the profession of teaching. The want of competent teachers is very 
sensibly felt, even by those who have the means to educate their chil- 
dren. An interesting paper on this subject, drawn up at my request by 
the Hon. J. S. B. Thatcher, is herewith transmitted. The subject has 
been so fully considered as to supersede the necessity of my pursuing 
it. The views of Judge Thatcher meet my cordial approbation, and are 
therefore recommended to your favorable consideration. 

The Rev. Mr. Champlin, a blind philanthropist, has been for some 
time engaged in the humane work of teaching the blind. He has re- 
ceived the aid of many charitable persons, and intends making applica- 
tion to the legislature for further assistance. Many of the states of 
7 



98 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

, this Union have properly lent their assistance to this benevolent work, 
and no doubt is entertained that Mississippi "will follow their example. 

Although opposed to the increase of salaries as a general rule, it has 
occurred to me that the true interest of the state would be promoted by 
increasing the salaries of the district attorneys to a sum equal to those 
of the circuit judges, and by prohibiting them from practising in their 
own circuits in civil cases. In this way the state would procure the 
undivided attention of able lawyers, and thus have the best possible 
guarantee that her interest in court would not suffer. The present low 
salaries do not justify attorneys in abandoning the civil docket; and 
nothing is risked in asserting that no lawyer of respectable standing 
would be confined to the criminal docket for the salary of a district 
attorney. Economy and a faithful administration of the criminal laws 
equally demand this change. Our judicial system costs an annual sum 
little short of thirty thousand dollars over and above all the salaries in 
that department. Much of this large amount is paid for costs in cases 
where the state has failed in the prosecution, through some official neg- 
lect or incompetency, and where the guilty have in consequence gone 
unpunished. The foregoing recommendation, if carried out, it is hoped 
will correct this great and growing evil. 

The success of the penitentiary for the last two years has not equalled 
the general expectation. In 1846, the balance sheet exhibited a loss of 
eight hundred and eighty-four dollars and fifty-three cents ; and this 
year the gain is shown by the same exhibit to be eighty-five dollars and 
fifteen cents. In justice, it should be admitted that the losses have been 
greater than the reports indicate. By an investigation of the accounts 
for 1846, it will be seen that six thousand five hundred and seventy- 
three dollars and seventy-three cents was drawn from the treasury in 
that year ; and this year, 1847, six thousand three hundred and thirty- 
nine dollars and forty-eight cents has been drawn for the use and sup- 
port of the institution ; and that the income is credited in 1846, by stock 
and tools on hand, nineteen thousand six hundred and fifty-nine dollars 
and seven cents, and in 1847, by twenty- six thousand six hundred and 
three dollars and sixty-three cents. 

All this material is valuable, and it may be worth the estimated sums. 
The tools are subject to waste, however, from constant use, and other 
articles will depreciate in value from being kept on hand. Until con- 
verted into money, their precise value cannot be ascertained. A rigid 
investigation into all the affairs of the prison is due to its officers and to 
the public, and is earnestly recommended by me. The reports of the 
inspectors and other officers for the two last years, ending November 
30th, 1847, are herewith transmitted, and will make you acquainted 
with the operations of the institution during that time. Your attention 
is especially directed to the report for 1847, and the recommendations 
therein contained : various difficulties have interposed to prevent a fair 
experiment in the business of manufacturing cotton and other goods, as 

* was intended by a law of the last legislature. For full information in 
respect to the progress made in the business of manufacturing, respectful 
reference is made to the report for 1847. Hopes are confidently enter- 
tained that the experiment will in the end prove highly successful and 
satisfactory, and that the prison will thence cease to be a charge on the 



LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE. • 99 

treasury. It is worthy of remark, that the penitentiary mode of im- 
prisonment, expensive as it has seemed to be, is cheaper than any other, 
and recommends itself as the best means of punishing malefactors by its 
efficacy and its humanity. 

Benjamin G. Weir, Esq., resigned the superintendency of the prison 
in May last. The executive appointment was tendered to J. W. Wade, 
of Holmes county, who entered immediately on the duties of the office, 
and has continued to discharge them to my entire satisfaction. 

Attention is respectfully called to the manner of keeping books in the 
auditor's office. The plan is radically defective. The business is ren- 
dered complicated and difficult to understand. Accounts are so inter- 
mingled that a proper investigation of them is almost impossible. 
Charges are made under general heads, as the legislative, executive, 
judicial, &c., and no individual accounts are kept. It is respectfully 
suggested that a debit and credit account should be opened with every 
individual who has moneyed transactions with the office, on one side of 
which he may have credit for what is due him, and be charged on the 
other with the amount paid him : thus exhibiting at a single view, the 
state and condition of each man's account. It would be well to open 
an account with each county in the state, crediting each with all that is 
received from it, and charging each with all that is paid to it or its 
citizens. Salaries of the state officers might be chai*ged pro rata to the 
several counties according to their population ; and those of district 
officers according to the number of days' service rendered to each. Such 
accounts would be easily kept, and would be useful as matters for future 
statistical reference. 

The habit of paying members of the legislature, judges, and other 
officers, and indeed of paying almost the entire sum that goes out of the 
treasury, without any special appropriation, seems to me to conflict with 
the 7 Sec, 7 Art. of our state constitution. The language of the state 
and federal constitutions on this point is precisely the same, that " no 
money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of an 
appropriation made by law." Congress has deemed that specific appro- 
priations were necessary to pay the stated salaries of the judges, cabinet 
officers, and foreign ministers : the salary of the President, and even 
their own per diem allowance. Not a dollar goes out of the national 
treasury without first passing the ordeal of a Congressional appropria- 
tion. It will be admitted that this construction of the constitution is the 
safe one ; and as it will require but little trouble and no expense to con- 
form to it strictly, it ought to be done. We should in future require 
estimates from the auditor's office for the annual expenditures of the 
state. Appropriations should be made for every dollar that is to be 
paid out, and the issues should be kept strictly within the appropria- 
tions. By this means, the people would at least see a point beyond 
which their annual payment could not be made to go. 

The attention of the legislature is again called to the immediate and 
pressing necessity for a lunatic asylum in this state. It is a reproach 
to any Christian people, that lunatics and insane persons should go at 
large, unprotected by the care of their fellows, constantly exposed to 
danger themselves, and putting in imminent peril the lives and property 



100 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

of others. An appropriation of three thousand dollars, if judiciously 
expended, would remedy this long-neglected and crying evil. 

Our statute punishing retailers of spirituous and vinous liquors, is 
defective in this ; that it imposes an indiscriminate penalty of thirty 
days' imprisonment and five hundred dollars fine in every case of con- 
viction. There are degrees in the magnitude of this offence as in all 
other cases. The quo animo should be strictly regarded, and the man 
■who, by accident rather than by design, infringes the law, should be 
punished in a less degree than one who flagrantly and perseveringly sets 
the law at defiance. The ends of justice will be subserved by leaving 
it discretionary with the court, before Avhich a conviction is had, to 
punish offenders of this class, say from one day's imprisonment and 
twenty-five dollars fine to one month's imprisonment and five hundred 
dollars fine. 

The law is defective on the subject of punishing burglary. No penalty 
is affixed by our statute to this offence when committed by a slave, and 
it is doubtful if punishment can be inflicted, or to what extent if at all. 
Manifestly it is an omission in the law, which should be supplied with- 
out delay. 

Your attention is again called to the necessity of making some suit- 
able provisions for protecting the public arms. Vast quantities of arms 
and accoutrements are annually lost and destroyed for the want of an 
armory, and some competent person to take charge of them. The loss, 
since our state existence, is little short of one hundred thousand dollars, 
and that sum is increasing annually by a sum larger than is required to 
keep the arms securely. 

By reference to the report of the adjutant-general, herewith trans- 
mitted, it will be seen that the militia of the state is in a good state of 
organization. 

Hon. Jesse Speight, senator in Congress from this state, died at his 
residence in Lowndes county, on the 1st day of May last, and, on the 
10th day of August, Colonel Jefferson Davis received and accepted the 
executive appointment to fill ad interim the vacancy thus created. The 
duty of electing a successor devolves on the legislature. 

In obedience to a legislative requirement, efforts have been made by 
me to collect the sum of six thousand one hundred and twenty-five dol- 
lars, expended by this state in 1836, in calling out volunteers in com- 
pliance with the requisition of Major-General E. P. Gaines, U. S. A. 
The accounting ofiicers at Washington have declined paying the claim, 
and assign the want of lawful authority as the reason. An appeal has 
been directed to Congress, but thus far without success. 

In conformity with the legislative direction, suit has been instituted 
on the bonds of the Newton and Lauderdale Turnpike Company — it is 
still pending in the Circuit Court of Clark county. One of the greatest 
obstacles in the way of a successful prosecution of the suit, is the loss 
of the original bonds, and the diflSculty in procuring correct or authentic 
copies. By way of preventing similar difficulties in future, it should be 
made the duty of every officer, with whom official and other bonds are 
deposited, to record them in a well bound book to be kept for that pur- 
pose, and copies from this record should be received in evidence when 
the originals are lost. 



J 



LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE. 101 

A. Hvitcliinson, Esq., has bestowed great labor in the preparation of 
a compilation of our statutes. The work is highly approved by com- 
petent judges ; and as the wants of the state imperiously demand such a 
book, it is I'espectfully recommended to your attention. The cost of the 
publication cannot be borne by the compiler on his sole responsibility, 
and, if on full examination, the book is found worthy of patronage, the 
legislature ought to afford such assistance as will insure its speedy pro- 
duction. 

Howard and Hutchinson's Code is almost out of print. In the course 
of ten years many of the laws embodied in it have been modified, altered, 
or repealed. Some of the pamphlet laws will have very soon to be re- 
printed, as the originals are almost or quite exhausted. Hereafter a 
larger number should be published, unless the legislature should think 
proper to order a compilation of all the statutes. Many reasons might 
be assigned why a compilation is preferable to any other mode of supply- 
ing the laws, but most of them will be so apparent to members of the 
legislature as to render the mention of them unnecessary. In fixing the 
number of copies of any law, ordered to be published, proper allowance 
should be made hereafter for the increasing population of the state, and 
the consequent increase in the number of the officers, as well as for the 
more important fact that many of the books and pamphlets that are 
scattered over the state, in the hands of several thousand persons, are 
lost or destroyed by neglect, or worn out by constant use. When other 
officers are elected, they must therefore be without the laws, unless the 
state can furnish them. 

Our Law and Chancery Reports number sixteen volumes. The de- 
cisions have been digested by W. C. Smedes, Esq., one of the present 
reporters to the Supreme Court, in a volume of about four hundred 
pages. In view of the difficulty of ascertaining and understanding the 
decisions of our courts by officers, who are not lawyers, the utility of 
such a book is manifest. It gives the decisions under proper heads, ia 
such manner as to place the adjudications on all the various points in an 
accessible and convenient form before the reader ; this work is well 
spoken of by the judges of the High Court of Errors and Appeals in a 
letter herewith transmitted, and is by me recommended to the favorable 
consideration of the legislature. 

The public buildings at Jackson have been greatly neglected for some 
years. Necessary repairs have not been made for want of means. The 
utmost that could be done with the limited amount at my disposal, has 
been to prevent absolute waste. There should be an annual appropria- 
tion placed at the disposal of the governor to keep the buildings in * 
repair. 

The United States has purchased a lot of ground in the village of 
Biloxi, with the view to the erection of a light-house thereon, in pursu- 
ance of an appropriation by Congress for that purpose. A letter from 
James E. Saunders, collector of the port of Mobile, is herewith trans- 
mitted, asking the passage of an act ceding jurisdiction to the United 
States over said lot. Your early attention is invited to the subject. 

The amendment proposed by the last legislature to our state constitu- 
tion, in regard to banks, was voted on at the November election, 1847. 
The whole number of votes cast for members of the legislature was little 



102 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

short of fifty thousand, of which only eighteen thousand five hundred 
voted for the proposed amendment, as shown by tlie returns made to the 
secretary of state. If these returns are taken as conclusive, the amend- 
ment has not carried, and cannot, therefore, be inserted in the constitu- 
tion. But it is understood that many thousand votes were polled of 
which no return has been made. Such culpable neglect or official mal- 
versation should be rightly investigated, and suitable steps taken to 
prevent its recurrence. A proper inquiry may lead to the evidence that 
the amendment has passed. 

The report of Edward Pickett, M. D., vaccine agent for the state, is 
herewith transmitted, and will bring you acquainted with the manner in 
which he has discharged his duties, and the extent to which the agency 
has been made useful. 

Resolutions, official letters, and other documents, embracing a great 
variety of subjects, are herewith transmitted, to which your attention is 
respectfully invited. 

The President of the United States has made three several requisitions 
on the state for volunteers to assist in prosecuting the war with Mexico. 
The two first for a regiment of infantry or riflemen each, and the last 
for a battalion of riflemen. The first and second calls were responded 
to as promptly as the most ardent patriotism could have desired, but a 
combination of circumstances produced some delay in organizing the 
battalion. It has been despatched, however, to the seat of war, and is 
now on the way to Mexico. 

The first regiment volunteered for twelve months, and having served 
out the time, was returned, to the United States and discharged. It 
was the good fortune of this regiment to have participated in two of the 
most brilliant engagements of the war ; its gallant bearing needs no 
eulogium from me. The storming of Monterey and the field of Buena 
Vista, will tell how faithfully the first Mississippi rifles did their duty. 
The regiment numbered nearly one thousand when they entered the 
service — only three hundred and fifty-eight returned at the end of 
twelve months. 

The second regiment is with the army under General Taylor, and 
supplies the place of the first. The battalion has been ordered to join 
the column under General Scott. Both these volunteered during the 
war. The battalion has but just entered the service ; the regiment has 
served about twelvemonths; when last heard from they were in fine 
spirits, and ready to render an account of themselves whenever called 
upon. They have been kept in camp, and have suff'ered greatly from 
disease, but are now in good health ; and should the war be unfortunately 
protracted, their ardent desire for active service will most likely be 
realized. 

The representatives of the people will doubtless express to the volun- 
teers the deep sense of gratitude with which their admiring countrymen 
have received intelligence of their toils, their sufferings, and their 
triumphs. 

The accompanying correspondence will inform you, that, at my 
solicitation, the arms and accoutrements borne by the first regiment in 
Mexico were issued to this state as a part of her quota, and by an execu- 
tive order were allowed to remain in the hands of those who had so 



LAST ANNUAL MESSAGE. 103 

worthily used them in battle. The legislature may perform an accept- 
able service, by presenting to each discharged soldier of the first regi- 
ment his rifle and its accoutrements. It affords me great pleasure to 
make that recommendation. 

Some embarrassment has been experienced in providing the necessary 
supplies for the volunteers. The government agents are not always at 
hand, and when present do not furnish all that is required. Consider- 
able sums have been expended from time to time, and the accounts have 
been promptly settled at Washington when sent on. United States 
officers, acting in a subordinate capacity, would not settle demands, 
unless contracted within the clearly-defined limits of their legal autho- 
rity. Hence, the state executive had first to pay them, and then look 
to the Secretary of War, who acts with a more comprehensive discretion, 
for repayment. Ten thousand dollars should be placed at the disposal 
of the governor to meet these demands in future. 

It is foreign to the purposes of this communication, to consider the 
cause which produced the war, or the ends to be accomplished by it ; 
but it has given momentum and present consequence to another question, 
in which our state has a very direct, local, and individual interest. In 
view of the possible acquisition of territory, by way of indemnity, the 
House of Representatives of the United States declared, by a large vote, 
that " neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in any ter- 
ritory hereafter to be acquired by, or annexed to, the United States, 
except for crimes whereof the party shall have been first duly convicted." 
The sentiment has been taken up by many of the non-slaveholding states, 
and by distinguished men of both the great political parties. Virginia, 
in a series of resolutions, indited with perspicuity and the calmness of 
conscious rectitude, has assumed the true national position on this ques- 
tion. These resolutions, together with a copy of my reply thereto, 
made in the absence of the legislature, and addressed to the Governor 
of Virginia, are herewith transmitted. 

Territory acquired by the joint effort of the states, must be the pro- 
perty of all the states, and any attempt by the free states to exclude the 
slaveholding states from a full participation in the ownership and 
occupancy of it, would be as preposterous as if the latter were to assume, 
through the agency of Congress, to establish the institution of slavery 
throughout such acquired territory. The might of the free states does 
not carry with it the right to legislate against the slave states. Ours is 
not a consolidated government, ruled by the power of majorities not 
strictly controlled by the federal constitution, but it is a confederation 
of states, in which the rights of each state are reserved to itself, except 
in so far as for the general good, they have been delegated to the con- 
federation. The power to legislate in regard to slavery has not been 
delegated, and therefore does not belong to the federal government, but 
remains with the states respectively. The question in the territories, it 
seems to me, must be left, as in the states, to be settled by the people 
who inhabit them. A state, by its municipal regulations, may exclude 
slavery, but it is not pretended that Congress can do so. Where does 
the federal power derive its authority to exclude it from the territory ? 
A man's slave is his property, so recognised by the Constitution, and so 
declared by the highest courts of the country ; and a citizen of Missis- 



104 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

sippi may settle with his slave property in the. territory of the United 
States, with as little constitutional hindrance as a citizen from any other 
state may settle with any other species of property. The same power 
that could exclude a Mississippian with his slaves could exclude a New 
Yorker with his merchandise. 

New states, asking admission into the Union, are to be introduced 
upon terms of equality with the original states. Congress must take 
care that they have a republican form of government, and that their 
constitutions do not conflict with that of the United States ; and here 
the power to direct and control them ceases. No other and extraordinary 
conditions are to be imposed upon them. Each state, for herself, as she 
enters the Union, must decide whether she will take her position with 
the free or slave states of the Union. If an anti-slavery majority in 
Congress may, by the mere force of that majority, exclude slavery from 
a territory, and thus prepare the way for making her, in the end, a free 
state, why may not a pro-slavery majority force slaves upon the territory, 
and thus make it a slave state ? And if the opponents of slavery may 
deny to a new state admission into the Union, until she excludes slavery 
from her limits, why may not the friends of slavery exclude such appli- 
cant until she admit and establish the institution of slavery ? The 
southern slaveholder has never undertaken to exclude the northern anti- 
slavery man from a full share in the ownership and enjoyment of all the 
territory in the United States. He has never undertaken to control the 
settlement of such territory, always admitting the right of each new 
state to regulate her own domestic institutions ; he has never sought to 
exclude such state because she prohibited slavery — yet, we are met with 
unceasing efforts to exclude slavery from the territories ; to deny the 
slave owner the right to go with his property into such territory, and to 
close the doors of the Union against the admission of slave states. Need 
it be asserted that such attempts are violative of the Constitution, and 
in derogation of the rights of the states, and of the people ? It is no 
reply to say, that the free states are the strong party, and that a 
majority must rule. The voice of a majority, unsustained by the Con- 
stitution, is utterly poAverless. Majorities may pass enactments in vio- 
lation of the Constitution, but they can impose no corresponding obliga- 
tions on the minority to obey them. They may attempt to exact 
obedience by force — the attempt, so far as it succeeds, will be tyranny 
and oppression, and, if persisted in, will result in revolution. For, 
whenever the will of a majority supersedes the restrictions of the Con- 
stitution, and the rights of the states and individuals possess no other 
guarantee than such as are yielded to them by the strong party, our 
federal government will have ceased to be one of confederated states, 
and each member must assume its original, sovereign, and independent 
position. Whether we shall be forced to this extremity, depends upon 
the councils which shall govern at Washington. It becomes our state, 
menaced as she is with a serious and unauthorized restriction of her 
present rights, and an ultimate overthrow of her domestic institutions, 
to assume her position, and publicly to declare and make known the 
course she will feel constrained to pursue, sooner than submit to such 
tyranny and oppression. She should take her position with the calm 
dignity of determined resistance, and maintain it with all the pertinacity 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 105 

of one who knows her rights, and knowing dares defend them. The 
hope is, therefore, earnestly expressed, that the legislature will take our 
position into serious consideration, and, after mature reflection, place 
the state in such attitude before the Union and the world on this subject, 
as that her conduct, whatever it may be, shall have the unqualified 
approval of every man, at home and abroad, who loves the country and 
reveres the Constitution. 

No other subject of general interest presents itself to my mind as 
worthy of special notice. 

In transmitting to the two Houses of the legislature this my last 
general communication, and being about to close an oificial connection 
with the state which has existed for four years, the occasion is embraced 
to tender my grateful thanks to the people and their representatives for 
the generous manner in which they have treated the errors of my 
administration. If the condition of the state has been improved, and 
the general welfare promoted, the credit is due to the people and their 
officers, who have acted together for this desirable end. _ Guided by the 
wisdom which is from on high, all interests have harmonized in bringing 
about an improved state of our public affairs ; and it_ is gratifying to 
know that the same course hereafter, under the guidance of Divine 
Providence, will lead us to that high destiny which awaits our state in 
the no distant future. 

We should never cease to remember the dependence we owe to our 
Father which is in Heaven, and our prayers should continually ascend, 
that He may vouchsafe to us wisdom in our deliberations, and a pure 
patriotism in the performance of every act involving the welfare of our 

beloved country. 

A. G. Brown. 

Executive Chamber, January 3d, 1848. 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 

In the House of Representatives, February 10, 1848, in Committee of the Whole on 
the state of the Union, on the bill to authorize a loan not exceeding eighteen 
million five hundred thousand dollars— Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, said :— 

I AM aware, Mr. Chairman, that I am to speak under many disad- 
vantages. The committee have manifestly grown weary of this discus- 
sion ; and nothing less than such a speech as that with which we have 
been entertained by the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Marsh] will now 
interest them. The speech was beautiful in its conception, and chaste 
in its delivery ; and though, to my mind, illogical in its deductions, and 
erroneous in its conclusions, it arrested the profound attention of the 
committee. If I had selected my own position, I should not have 
chosen to follow such a speech, it not being my purpose to reply to it. 
The difficulty in obtaining the floor has imposed on me the necessity of 
speaking when I am permitted, and not when I desired to do so. 



106 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

The opinions of my constituents constitute a part of the grand aggre- 
gate of public sentiment in regard to the Mexican war ; and both they 
and their representative have a reasonable anxiety that these opinions 
may be included when the general account current with public opinion 
comes to be made up on this subject. 

We believe the war to have been just and constitutional in its com- 
mencement ; that it has been vigorously prosecuted thus far, for wise 
and proper ends ; and that it should be so prosecuted, until we have the 
amplest reparation for past wrongs, and the fullest security that our 
rights as a nation are to be respected in future. To this end, we are 
prepared to vote such number of troops, and such additional sums of 
money as, in the judgment of the commander-in-chief, may be necessary 
to attain these objects. 

The gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Marsh] has said that the annexa- 
tion of Texas was the cause of the war, and I agree with him. War, 
he says, was not the necessary result of annexation, and again I agree 
with him. It was no just cause of complaint with Mexico, that we 
annexed Texas to the United States. This, to my mind, is clear ; and 
yet, if we had not had annexation, we should have had no war. Mexico 
may have destroyed our property, murdered our people, insulted our 
flag, and violated her treaty stipulations, as she had done for many long 
years, and such is our love of peace, that we would have borne it all 
with patience, and waited for reparation on the tedious process of nego- 
tiation with a nation proverbial for being slow in making treaties, and 
swift to violate them after they are made. But when Mexico came upon 
our soil, in all the panoply of war, burning our houses, plundering and 
murdering our people before our face, threatening desolation to the 
country, and menacing our little army with a total overthrow, we began 
at last to think of war. The old leaven of 1776 began to work — the 
spirit of 1812, which had been dormant for more than thirty years, 
awoke from its slumbers ; still Ave only thought of war. Mexico 
threatened, but we looked for peace. Point Isabel had been set on fire. 
Cross was murdered, Thornton and his command were captured and borne 
off in triumph, and yet we had no war. A Mexican army threatened 
to attack General Taylor in his camp, and yet war lingered in the lap 
of peace. At length, a Mexican general, at the head of a Mexican 
army, boldly threw himself across the path of our forces, and hurling 
defiance in their teeth, disputed their march at the mouth of the cannon. 
Two bloody conflicts (in both of which, Mexico, true to her national 
instincts, fired the first gun, and made the first retreat) were the conse- 
quences. And after all this, we are told that we commenced the war. 

The President, it is said, commenced the war by ordering the army 
into Mexico, and by his subsequent " unnecessary and unconstitutional" 
orders to General Taylor to advance and take a position on the Rio 
Grande. Let us examine these orders, their dates, their contents, and 
the circumstances under which they were issued — not as partisans, intent 
on gaining advantage for the one or the other party, but as patriots, as 
the representatives of a free people, who love justice as much as they 
love their country. But before we do this, let us examine into the his- 
tory of that Texas, the annexation of which produced the war, to the 
end that we may fully appreciate the justice of the complaint urged with 






THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 107 

SO much vehemence and ill blood by Mexico against it. Having ad- 
mitted that the annexation (however unjustly made so) was the cause 
of the war, I should fail in doing justice to the President, improperly 
charged as he is, by a vote of this House, with bringing the country 
into a state of war "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally," if I did not 
note the precise agency which he had in the transaction. As a private 
citizen he gave his opinion in favor of it, as did hundreds of thousands 
all over the Union. I shall not pause to inquire how far his views may 
have influenced his countrymen, or to what extent an expression of them 
influenced his fellow-citizens, in calling him from private life to preside 
over the destinies of this great nation. The conviction has taken deep 
root in the public mind, that the expression of opinions adverse to those 
of Mr. Polk defeated the nomination to the presidency of one distin- 
guished man before a convention of his party, and the election of another 
by the people. From all of which, I have concluded that Mr. Polk did 
not lead, but followed public sentiment on this subject. The sin of the 
President is not (if I am right in this) that he led, but that he followed, 
his countrymen into a false position, if false it was. The responsibility 
rests, therefore, where I hope responsibility in this country may always 
rest on all questions of vital interest, with the people— the people who 
demanded annexation — the people who never did and never will shirk 
the responsibility of their own act— the people Avho will, if permitted, 
fight out this war to a speedy and honorable issue— the people who will 
supply all the means, both in men and money, and in the end, in defiance 
of opposition here or elsewhere, demand and obtain just and honorable 
terms of Mexico. They will settle their accounts in their own way, not 
only with Mexico, but with their representatives here, meting out justice 
to whom it is due. 

Annexation, I have said, was no just cause of war. In this I but 
concur in opinion with the eloquent gentleman who preceded me. I am 
glad, too, to find myself sustained in this by another of New England's 
sons — a man to whom I know many thousands of his countrymen look 
for counsel, and on whose accents they hang as upon the words of inspi- 
ration — a man who not only speaks but thinks for a large number of 
people, who do their thinking, as princes sometimes do their wooing, by 
proxy. Mr. Webster is reported to have said, in a late speech on this 
subject : " And I go further ; I say that, in my judgment, after the 
events of 1836 and the battle of San Jacinto, Mexico had no reason to 
regard Texas as one of her provinces. She had no power in Texas ; 
but it was entirely at the disposition of those who lived in it. They 
made a government for themselves. This country acknowledged that 
government, foreign states acknowledged that government ; and I think, 
in fairness and honesty, we must admit, that in 1840, '41, '42, and '43, 
Texas was an independent state among the states of the earth. I do 
not admit, therefore, that it was any just ground of complaint on the 
part of Mexico that the United States annexed Texas to themselves." _ 

Let us now, Mr. Chairman, look to the record, and see how far it 
justifies these conclusions. What was Texas at the period of annexa- 
tion ? A sovereign and independent repubUc. History so records her. 
The nations of the earth had so acknowledged her. She won her inde- 
pendence, as we won ours, on the battle-field. She maintained it, as we 



108 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

maintained ours, by the energy, the valor, the indomitable courage of 
her people. We acknowledged her independence, as other nations had 
acknowledged ours — as we and others had acknowledged the indepen- 
dence of Mexico herself. We did not consult Spain when we acknow- 
ledged the independence of Mexico ; nor did we think it necessary to 
consult Mexico when Texas asked to be recognised as independent of 
her lawless tyranny. 

Texas, thus independent, asked admission into our Union. She pre- 
sented the sublime spectacle of an independent republic, asking to blot 
Out her separate nationality, and to merge her political existence into 
that of a sister republic ; that the flag of this Union, with the addition 
of another star, might be permitted to float over the people and the 
territory of two nations united into one. The politicians raised their 
voices against it, but the people said it should be done, and it was done 
— Vox populi. 

What Texas was it that was thus annexed to the United States ? It 
was that country which we had acquired from France in 1803 — which 
we ceded to Spain in 1819 — which never did belong of right to Mexico 
— which Houston and his brave compatriots wrested from tyranny and 
misrule on the plains of San Jacinto, and over which they extended, and 
continued for eight years to maintain, both civil and military jurisdic- 
tion. It was the country lying between the Sabine and the Rio Grande ; 
and we have the concurrent testimony of living witnesses, who have 
come down to us from another generation, that history is right. Mr. 
Clay and John Quincy Adams are these witnesses. 

It is now said, that Mexico, in fixing the boundary between the depart- 
ments of Texas and Tamaulipas blotted out the old landmarks as recog- 
nised in the treaties of 1803 and 1819, and appointed the Nueces as the 
dividing line. This may be so, or it may not. I have tolerable evidence 
that it is not. I neither admit nor deny the truth of the assertion ; 
therefore content myself with saying, that without stronger evidence 
than I have yet seen, I must adhere to a conviction long entertained, 
that the Nueces never was the boundary between Texas and Tamaulipas 
by any law of Mexico, properly so considered. But this is wholly 
immaterial. The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Stephens] took the 
correct view of this subject, and I am happy to have his concurrence on 
one point, and to commend his views to his party. Texas, says the 
gentleman, extended as far west as the people of that country established 
and maintained their authority, and this I shall demonstrate was to the 
Rio Grande. The first Texan Congress that assembled after the battle 
of San Jacinto defined the western boundary by the Rio Grande. When 
we and other nations acknowledged her independence, this was her 
boundary, as defined by herself; we acknowledged her jurisdiction over 
the whole country without restriction or limitation. Texas laid off 
counties in the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, and 
these counties were represented when, as a state, she asked admission 
into the Union. She declares all her laws, not inconsistent with the 
annexation resolutions nor with the Constitution of the United States, 
to be still in force. Now, was there anything either in our Constitution 
or in the resolutions of annexation not perfectly consistent with this law 
defining the western boundary of Texas by the Rio Grande ? Nothing, 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 109 

sir. The question of boundary, by the resolutions, was to be finally 
settled, so far as the United States and Mexico were concerned, by 
negotiation ; and until our government, by virtue of the power thus 
reserved over the question, concluded this negotiation, the laws of Texas, 
by the terms of the compact, remained in force. But further than this, 
Texas, by her constitution as a state of this Union, defines the counties 
of Bexar and San Patricio, as in senatorial districts. These counties lie, 
in whole or in part, between the Rio Grande and the Nueces. The 
United States admitted her as a member of the confederacy, knowing 
that she had fixed her western boundary at the Rio Grande, and approved 
her constitution defining the senatorial districts I have just mentioned. 
Not a court for the transaction of business was held in that country, 
save under Texan laws. Texas, then, established and maintained her 
civil jurisdiction over the country. In a military point of view, how did 
she stand? Whenever Mexico, by her predatory invaders, crossed the 
Rio Grande, she commenced killing and destroying, showing that she 
was among enemies. Surely she Avould not thus prey upon her own 
people ; and Texas, when she drove out the invaders, always pursued 
them to the Rio Grande ; and she drove them out as often as they came 
in. Thus, I think, her military authority over the country is made 
complete. 

When the United States admitted Texas into the Union, it was with 
a full knowledge that she had defined her western boundary by the Rio 
Grande ; that she had maintained that boundary by her civil and mili- 
tary authority. We accepted her constitution, establishing, as it did, a 
senatorial district west of the Nueces, and extending to the Rio Grande. 
We did more than this, in declaring Corpus Christi a port for the collec- 
tion of duties. We established a post-office there, and another at Point 
Isabel ; we established post routes in the country. Thus, in every form 
in which the question may be viewed, whether in regard to the legisla- 
tion of Texas, or of our own Congress, the country between the Nueces 
and the Rio Grande has been recognised as within the limits of Texas. 
Congress, in times of peace, has never assumed the right to collect 
duties, and to establish post-offices and post-roads in Mexico ; and by 
this very act of legislation, we have proclaimed to the President and to 
the world, that the jurisdiction of the United States has been extended 
to all the country between these two rivers. Under these circumstances, 
what was the President's manifest duty ? To abandon a country, thus 
recognised as within the rightful limits of a member of the Union, and 
therefore under the segis of national protection ? — to give it up to Mexi- 
can rapacity, suffer our custom-house to be burnt, our post-offices de- 
stroyed, our mail-carriers killed or taken prisoners? — the houses of our 
citizens destroyed, and themselves and families butchered or driven 
from the country ? Had he done this, his present revilers would, with 
justice, have heaped mountains of abuse on him. The whole country 
would have risen up against him, and he would indeed have been buried 
so deep beneath the curses of his countrymen, " that the arm of resur- 
rection never would have reached him !" 

What, again let me ask, was the President's manifest duty ? To settle 
the question of boundary by negotiation, as the annexation resolutions 
had provided ; and, until this was done, to hold peaceable possession of 



110 ALBEBT G. BROWN. 

all the territory within the rightful limits of Texas, and, if needs be, to 
repel any hostile invasion of it from Mexico or elsewhere. 

For a more perfect understanding of the President's course, let us 
consider the temper in which Mexico received an intimation that Texas 
was about to be annexed. As early as 1843 (when Mr. Webster thinks 
Mexico had no just claim on Texas), her Minister of Foreign Affairs 
thus writes to Mr. Thompson, our minister resident in Mexico : — 

" The Mexican government will consider equivalent to a declaration of war against 
the Mexican republic the passage of an act for the incorporation of Texas with the 
United States ; the certainty of the fact being sufficient for the proclamation of war, 
leaving it to the civilized world to determine with regard to the justice of the cause 
of the Mexican nation in a struggle which it has been so far from provoking." 

Mexico continued to threaten, and our people became more resolute 
on the question of annexation — very properly determining to do what 
they had a right to do in defiance of Mexican threats or Mexican arms. 
When the voice of the people had triumphed over the voice of the politi- 
cians, and when, in obedience to the popular mandate, the annexation 
resolutions passed both Houses of Congress, what course did Mexico 
pursue ? Her minister resident here, addressed, to Mr. Calhoun, then 
Secretary of State of the United States, a formal protest against this 
consummation of the will of our peeple. From this protest I submit an 
extract. After assigning what he is pleased to term reasons against the 
annexation. General Almonte proceeds : — 

" For these reasons, the undersigned, in compliance with his instructions, finds 
himself required to protest — as he does in fact protest — in the most solemn manner, 
in the name of his government, against the law passed on the 28th of the last month 
by the general Congress of the United States, and approved on the first of the present 
month by the President of these states, whereby the province of Texas, an integrant 
portion of the Mexican territory, is agreed and admitted [se consiente y admite] into 
the American Union. The undersigned, moreover, protests, in the name of his 
government, that the said law can in nowise invalidate the rights on which Mexico 
relies to recover the above-mentioned province of Texas, of which she now sees her- 
self unjustly despoiled ; and that she will maintain and uphold those rights at all 
times, by every means which may be in her power." 

Now, sir, what have we here ? The Mexican protest against the 
annexation of Texas — " The province of Texas, an integral portion of 
the Mexican territory." The bold Mexican scorns to speak of a divided 
province or territories in dispute. He had heard of the "fifty-four- 
forties," and he became in spirit one of them. He went for the whole 
or none. And what was the threat distinctly put forth in the minister's 
protest? That Mexico will uphold her right to Texas at all times, and 
hy every means ivhieh may he in her power. What means are here 
alluded to ? She had threatened war if Texas was annexed. The peo- 
ple of the United States spurned the threat ; and after the annexation 
is consummated, Mexico says she will use all the means in her power 
"to recover the province of which she sees herself unjustly despoiled." 
These means were armies, equipped for action — they could be nothing 
else. After this petulant exhibition of the Mexican minister, he received 
his passports at his own request, and left the country ; and what followed ? 
Every gale that swept from the south bore upon its wings some note of 
preparation in Mexico to invade Texas. Her embattled hosts were con- 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO. Ill 

gregating from her hills and her valleys. At every step she uttered 
war, and not a breath escaped her that did not carry with it the taint 
of her deep and damning hate of our country and our laws. Look at 
all this, and answer me, if the President would not have been grossly 
derelict in his duty if he had not been warned ? Would he not have 
betrayed the confidence of a generous people if he had not prepared to 
meet this approaching crisis ? Nor was the President left to his own 
conjectures and the Avarnings which Mexico had given from time to time 
of her hostile intentions. The Texan Secretary of State appealed to 
the United States, through her minister (Mr, Donelson), for protection 
to his country against Mexican vengeance, — a modest appeal, sent up 
by a young sister not yet in the full bloom of womanhood, to be pro- 
tected against the infernal lusts of an infuriated monster. How should 
such an appeal have been answered ? How was it answered ? By send- 
ing our eagles to hover around and protect the young state. And who 
shall say it was wrong ? Where are the men that dare stand up before 
the American people, gtnd tell them, that after Texas was annexed by 
their order, the President ought to have given her over to the merciless 
spoliations of Mexico ? There they sit, sir, on the opposite side of this 
hall ; the men who, in full view of all the facts, have soiled the jour- 
nals of this House with a charge that the President involved us in an 
"unnecessary and unconstitutional war" — a war commenced, as Mexico 
herself declared, " to recover the province of Texas, of which she saw 
herself unjustly despoiled." 

Gentlemen, when closely pressed, admit that the army might right- 
fully have been sent to Corpus Christi. How dare they deny it? Con- 
gress had declared it an American port for the collection of duties, and 
had otherwise legislated in regard to it. And where, sir, is Corpus 
Christi ? West of the Nueces, by a parallel line, several miles, and in 
that very territory which gentlemen now claim as disputed territory. 
American senators and representatives have set up for Mexico a bound- 
ary Avhich she never did, until prompted to it by them, set up for herself. 
They claim the Nueces as her boundary, and we for our own country 
claim the Rio Grande. Now, you admit that our armies might rightfully 
cross the boundary claimed by you for Mexico, and yet you say that 
they could not, "lawfully and constitutionally," penetrate as far west 
as our boundary. Will some gentleman oblige me by pointing out an 
intermediate stopping point — some place at which our army might halt 
without a violation of the rights of Mexico or our own " Constitution." 
Until this is done, I must indulge the opinion, that by the same right 
that they crossed the line claimed for Mexico, they could advance to the 
boundary claimed for the United States. There was no intermediate 
stopping point. 

Gentlemen claim that the territory between the Nueces and the Rio 
Grande was neutral territory. How came it to be so ? You tell me it 
was territory in dispute. Who made it so ? Mexico certainly never did. 
She claimed, I repeat, all of Texas, and scorned to speak of anything 
short of a recovery of the whole province. But admitting (which can 
only be done for the sake of argument) that the territory was in dispute — 
had we not as much right to be on it as Mexico ? And if we went there 
and occupied it first, might Mexico come with force of arms and drive 



112 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

US away ? Does not common sense revolt at the idea, of the right of 
one party to drive another by force, from the occupancy of an estate to 
which each have an equal claim ? 

But gentlemen tell us the question of boundary ought to have been 
settled by negotiation ; and I agree with them perfectly. It ought to 
have been so adjusted. The gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Marsh] 
says the President never intended or desired to settle the dispute with- 
out a war. He longed for a little more patronage, a few more oiSces, 
with which to sate the cormorant appetites of his hungry expectants. 
A most unworthy charge, as ridiculous in its conception as it is untrue 
in fact. That the President did desire to settle this and all other mat- 
ters of difference with Mexico, " let facts be submitted to a candid world." 
After all the demonstrations which Mexico had made from time to time, 
the President contented himself with sending a small army to the fron- 
tiers of Texas, and took the earliest opportunity of assuring Mexico that 
the army was sent with no hostile intentions ; and these assurances were 
from time to time repeated in the most positive and emphatic form. 
When sufficient time had elapsed for passion to subside and reason to 
resume her dominion in Mexico, the President, advancing with the most 
cautious steps, directed a communication to be written to our consul in 
Mexico (the minister having been sent home), instructing him to ascer- 
tain if Mexico would receive " an envoy intrusted with full powers to 
adjust ALL QUESTIONS in dispute between the two countries." This 
despatch of Mr. Buchanan bears date September 17th, 1845 ; and on 
the 17th of October following (only one month), Mr. Consul Black en- 
closes the answer of Mr. Pefia y Peiia, Mexican Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, stating that Mexico would receive " the commissioner who may 
come with full power to settle the matter in dispute," &c. Now gentle- 
men rise in their places and tell us that the President intentionally 
picked a quarrel with Mexico ; that Mexico agreed to receive a com- 
missioner, and the President sent them an envoy. For once, I give 
them the credit of following the enemies of their country. Mexico her- 
self ^rs^ made this point. The published documents (Doc. 196, H. R., 
29th Cong. 1st sess.. Executive) show that the United States offered to 
send "an envoy," and Mexico agreed to receive "the commissioner;" 
not a commissioner, but the commissioner ; meaning evidently to imply, 
that the envoy, the minister, the commissioner, the diplomatic agent of 
the United States, " charged with a settlement of all questions in dis- 
pute between the two countries," would be received in whatever name 
or style he presented his credentials. And so Mr. Buchanan understood 
it ; so the President understood it ; so Mr. Consul Black und'erstood it ; 
for, on the 28th of October, we find him writing to the Secretary of 
State that " the Mexican government is very anxious to know when they 
may expect the envoy." What plausible pretext is there that Mexico 
expected a commissioner ? She expected and had agreed to receive the 
diplomatic agent which our government had proposed to send. This is 
manifest from the whole correspondence. Paredes threatened to over- 
throw the weak or treaclierous government of Herrera ; and, by way 
of sustaining his tottering fortunes, his secretary was doubtless directed 
to make the best possible showing against the reception of Mr. Slidell, 
who, it is known, had proceeded to Mexico with extraordinary despatch, 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 113 

and presented his credentials as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary, on the 8th day of December; and on the 17th of the 
same month, he reports his rejection to the state department at home. 
I need not recapitulate the reasons assigned for this extraordinary con- 
duct on the part of Mexico : they were as puerile as they were absurd 
and contradictory. It was here stated, for the first time, that Mexico 
had agreed to receive a commissioner, and that the appointment of an 
envoy was not in accordance with the agreement ; that Mexico only con- 
templated negotiations on the subject of Texas, and that the powers of Mr. 
Slidell, as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, were not 
sufficient. Did stupidity ever sink to lower depths, or barefaced im- 
pudence assume a bolder front ? A commissioner is desired, to treat on 
a single subject, and an envoy extraordinary, "with power to treat on 
all questions," rejected because his powers are not sufiicient ! This is 
the manner in which the President's sincere overtures were treated — 
the credentials of his envoy, addressed to his ^^ great a7id good friend," 
and conveying marked assurances of his " desire to restore, cultivate, 
and strengthen friendship and good correspondence," scornfully thrust 
aside, and the envoy rejected. Mr. Slidell remained in the country, 
still seeking that " friendship and good correspondence" which was the 
object of his mission, until the revolution in favor of Paredes was com- 
plete ; and on the 1st of March, 1846, he presented his credentials to 
the revolutionary president of revolutionary Mexico ; and on the 12th 
of the same month, our minister was again rejected by Paredes' govern- 
ment, and he informed that Mexico had from the first regarded annexa- 
tion as a cause of war (casus belli). Thus fruitlessly terminated this 
sincere attempt at negotiations — sincere on our part, as every circum- 
stance attests ; hypocritical on the part of Mexico, as her official de- 
spatches fully prove. I beg to remark again, that up to this date 
(January 12th, 1846), Mexico regarded annexation as a cause of war. 
We hear nothing from her about the neutral territory, or the disputed 
territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, let us return, and examine events as they trans- 
pired nearer home. On the 28th of May, 1845, General Taylor was 
ordered with his forces to " a position where they could promptly and 
efficiently act in defence of Texas." On the 15th June, Mr. Bancroft, 
Secretary of War ad interim, ordered him to a position on or near the 
Rio Grrande. This order was modified in several successive orders from 
Secretary Marcy. And on the 15th of August, 1845, the general dates 
his official despatch, Corpus Christi, Texas. Here he remained until 
the l]th of March, 1846. Much stress has been laid on Mr. Bancroft's 
order of the 25th May, 1845. Now, I have simply to ask, if that order 
had not been recalled, how did it happen that General Taylor did not 
"take up a position on the Rio Grande?" Why do we find him at 
Corpus Christi from August 15th, 1845, to March 12th, 1846 ? • There 
can be but one answer : The order to advance had been revoked. It 
was done on the 30th of June, one month and two days after it was 
issued, and before General Taylor had yet reached Texas. On the 4th 
of October, 1845, the general writes to the War Office from Corpus 
Christi, Texas ; and from this important despatch I read — 
8 



114 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

" It is with p;reat deference that I make any suggestions on subjects which may 
become matters of delicate negotiation ; but if our government, in settling the 
question of boundary, makes the line of the Rio Grande an ultimatum, I cannot 
doubt that the settlement will be greatly facilitated and hastened by our taking 
possession at once of one or two suitable points on or quite near that river. Our 
strength and state of preparation should be displayed in a manner not to be mistaken. 
However salutary may be the effect produced on the border people by our presence 
here, we are too far from the frontier to impress the government of Mexico with 
our readiness to vindicate, by force of arms, if necessary, our title to the country as 
far as the Eio Grande." 

I have introduced this extract for more purposes than one. The first 
of these is, to show that General Taylor knew that Mr. Bancroft's order 
to march to the Rio Grande had been revoked ; for he here suggests 
that he be allowed to take one or two positions on the Rio Grande. 
Then I wish to exhibit the cogent reasoning in fiivor of such a position. 
First, that it would " facilitate and hasten a settlement of the boundary ;" 
then it Avould " display, in an imposing manner, our strength and state 
of preparation to the enemy." And, lastly, that it would "impress the 
Mexican government with a due sense of our readiness to vindicate, by 
force of arms, if necessary, our title to the country to the Rio Grande." 
These were the cogent, and, to my mind, conclusive reasons of the honest- 
hearted, patriotic, and brave old general for advising his Government 
to allow him " to take one or two positions, at once, on or near the Rio 
Grande." His position at Corpus Christi was, he said, ^^ too far from 
the frontier." The gentlemen in the opposition now pretend that Corpus 
Christi is beyond the Texas line ; but the general thought it was too far 
from the fro7itier, and asked permission to make a display of his strength 
and state of preparation on or near the Rio Grande. With what justice 
do gentlemen pretend that General Taylor was weak and Avithout arms, 
unprepared for battle, when he declares his wish to exhibit, " in a man- 
ner not to be mistaken, his strength and state of preparation?" — with 
what propriety charge that the order to march to the Rio Grande preci- 
pitated us into an ""unnecessary and unconstitutional war," when the 
general in command advised it as a means of " greatly facilitating and 
hastening a settlement of the controversy?" But, say gentlemen, the 
opinions of General Taylor were hypothetical. " If our Government 
intend to make the Rio Grande an ultimatum in settling the boundary" 
then he gave his opinions. And even these hypothetical opinions were 
subsequently modified, we are told. I grant the opinions were based on 
the hypothesis that we intended to insist on the Rio Grande ; and, I 
ask, if there is a single member of this House who ever dreamed that 
our Government would insist on less than the Rio Grande ? I venture 
to say there is not one. The hypothesis, then, amounts to nothing. 
How far was this discreet, sensible, and patriotic advice of the old chief 
subsequently modified ? No injustice shall be done to General Taylor 
with m*y consent, for mere party purposes. He uses his pen as he does 
his SAvord, for his country, and not for a party. Under date November 
7th, 1845, Corpus Cliristi, Texas, he writes to the War Department: — 

" The position now occupied by the troops may perhaps be the best while negotia- 
tions are pending, or at any rate, until a disposition shall be manifested by Mexico 
to protract them unreasonably." 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 115 

Here again he imparts sound and sensible advice to his country ; and 
the Administration, with that deference to the superior military judg- 
ment of the general, which it has always exhibited, acted on this advice. 
For we see that, advised as he was by General Taylor on the 4th of 
October, at once to take one or two positions on or near the Rio Grande, 
the order to advance was not issued by the President until the 13th of 
January, 1846; and why? Because negotiations were pending; and 
the President thought, with General Taylor, that the position of the 
army at Corpus Christi was the best that could be occupied ^'"pending 
negotiations." What had happened on the 13th of January ? Mr. Slidell 
was not on that day Avending his way (as a great man has erroneously 
stated) to Mexico with his diplomatic credentials in his pocket. He had 
reached Mexico (I speak from the record), presented his credentials on 
the 8th of December, 1845, and on the 17th of the same month reported 
his rejection to his Government. This despatch was received at the 
state department on the 12th of January ; diplomacy had failed, nego- 
tiations were no longer pending, and General Taylor's advice given on 
the 4th of October, and modified on the 7th of November, 1845, was 
now in all its bearings fully carried out. The order to advance, and 
" at ONCE take one or two positions on or near the Rio Grande," was 
issued on the 13th of January, 1846. If any are disposed to censure 
the President for permitting the important despatch of October 4th to 
remain unanswered until the 13th of January, let them bear in mind 
that negotiations were pending, and that the character of this Govern- 
ment's response, must of necessity have depended on the result of these 
negotiations. 

Now, let us follow General Taylor in his march. He is approaching 
the frontiers of Texas. He moved the last column of his army from 
Corpus Christi on the 11th of March, and on the 12th, Mr. Slidell Mas, 
a last time, rejected by the Paredes government in Mexico. On the 
4th of February, the general writes to his government, that " our advance 
to the Rio Grande will have a powerful eifect." His march was unmo- 
lested until he reached the Arroyo Colorada. Here the " irregular 
Mexican cavalry," (rancheros), or, in plain English, mountain robbers, 
opposed his crossing the river. The old general announced his deter- 
mination to advance, and pointed significantly at his big guns ; where- 
upon the "irregular Mexican cavalry" retired. The next we hear of 
him he is at Point Isabel, and here waited on by a Mexican deputation, 
sent by the prefect of Matamoros, on a mission of peace; and during the 
interview, Point Isabel was set on fire. This, says General Taylor, 
" I considered a decided evidence of hostility, and was not willing to be 
trifled with any longer." Our army advanced to a point opposite Mata- 
moros, from which General Taylor wrote, on the 29th of March, that 
the Mexicans were decidedly hostile ; and urged, for the first time, a 
reinforcement of his command. I beg to remark on this despatch, that 
it was addressed to the Adjutant General at Washington, and called on 
him for recruits, when the official documents show that the general had 
authority, from the 23d of August, 1845, to make requisitions on the 
governors of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and 
Kentucky, "for such number and description of troops as he might 
deem necessary." And I risk nothing in saying, that these states were 



116 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

ready at all times to have responded to such a requisition. Nor can I 
forbear, in justice to all parties, to mention, that General Taylor wrote 
to the same officer, on the 16th of February, 1846, ridiculing the idea 
of a large Mexican force attempting to arrest his march, or to invade 
Texas ; and says all these accounts are exaggerated : " I do not believe 
that our advance to the banks of the Rio Grande will be resisted. The 
army, however, will go fully prepaked for a state of hostilities, should 
they be unfortunately provoked by the Mexicans." In justice, too, I 
must call attention to the letter of Secretary Marcy, dated March 2, 
directing him to give assurances to Mexico that " it is our settled deter- 
mination, in every possible event, to protect private property, to respect 
personal rights, and to abstain from all interference in religious mat- 
ters." This General Taylor did. He was, by the same despatch, re- 
minded, " that in case of hostilities, his advance to the Rio Grande 
would remove him to a greater distance from the region from which 
auxiliary forces could be drawn;" and told "promptly and efficiently to 
use the authority with which he was clothed — to call to his aid such 
auxiliary forces as he might need." Noav, I ask, in the name of justice 
and common honesty, what propriety is there in charging the Adminis- 
tration with sending General Taylor to the Rio Grande without sufficient 
force? He says, "the army will go fully prepared for a state of hos- 
tilities;" but, "I do not think our march to the Rio Grande will be 
opposed." The Government tells him to " draw any number of 
auxiliary troops of the description you may need from the South-western 
States ; and as you are removing to a greater distance from your auxil- 
iaries, be on your guard — prepared to sustain yourself against any 
assault." 

I have but one other reference to make to these despatches, and that to 
the letter of General Taylor, in which he notes for the first time the 
state of preparation on both sides. Says the General, " The Mexicans 
still retain a hostile attitude, and have thrown up some works evidently 
intended to prevent us from crossing the river. On our side a battery 
of four eighteen-pounders will be completed, and the guns placed in 
battery to-day. These guns bear directly upon the public square in 
Matamoros. Their object cannot be mistaken by the enemy." 

It has been falsely charged that these guns were planted by order of 
the Government. So far from it, General Taylor was directed to main- 
tain the defensive, to respect private property, to protect personal 
rights, and to abstain from all interference with religion. He writes to 
his Government exultingly, " we have planted our battery, it bears 
directly upon the public square in Matamoros, and within good range 
for demolishing the town. The object cannot he mistaken hy the enemy.'' 
I do not blame General Taylor for this. He did right. No American 
general would have done otherwise. General Taylor is entitled to all 
the credit for planting that battery. I know he does not thank any 
man for pretending to shield him from the odium of the act. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, where was this despatch dated ? Opposite 
Matamoros, in Mexico ? No, sir. In Tamaulipas ? No, sir ; but op- 
posite Matamoros, Texas. General Taylor set out /or the frontiers of 
Texas, and he did not go beyond. He was no Israelitish general lead- 
ing an army through an unknown wilderness. He knew the country in 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 117 

• which he pitched his tent, and he called it Texas. He so continued to 
call it in his subsequent despatches. 

What, sir, were some of the most thrilling events connected with the 
earliest historj^ of this war? Point Isabel set on fire, and the brave old 
General, as he witnesses the conflagration, declares, I will be trifled 
with no longer. He plants his guns bearing on Matamoros, and " with- 
in good range to demolish the town," and exultingly says, " their object 
cannot be mistaken." The heroic Cross is murdered in cold blood, and 
Thornton and his command taken prisoners. The affairs at Palo Alto 
and Resaca occur ; and what, sir, was the effect produced on the public 
mind at home by the announcement of these events ? By one common 
impulse, the whole nation rose in arms ; a feeling as wide-spread and 
universal as it was patriotic and just, took possession of every mind ; 
the electric spark that lit the fires of genuine patriotism on the hearts 
of the people to the remotest nooks and dells of the far west, and all 
around to the shores of the se^, touched the political, calculating heart 
of Congress, and by a vote more prompt and more unanimous than was 
ever before known, war was solemnly declared " to exist by the act of 
Mexico." Within the last few days, this House has declared, by a 
strict party vote, that " the war exists by the unnecessary and unconstitu- 
tional act of the President." Against this foul charge I have com- 
bated, with what success, I leave the committee to decide. But what 
*' has brought this change o'er the spirit of your dreams ?" Ah ! fatal 
act ; fatal to the best interest of these states, fatal to truth and justice, 
the bastard offspring of a disappointed patriot. But I will not indulge 
my thoughts on this subject. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Ashraun], who introduced this resolution, took his party by surprise, 
and placed them in a position from which there is no retreat. You 
have crossed the Rubicon ; your votes are on record, and they will rise 
up like spectres against you in all after time. We accept the issue you 
have presented, and go into the next presidential contest on it; for, dis- 
guise it as you may, the presidency is the grand centre around which 
all this machinery revolves. The bank had gone down, free trade had 
become popular, the independent treasury was firmly planted ; in short, 
Whiggery had been sent to graze, like Nebuchadnezzar, and Democracy 
had been taken into the bosom of the people, and your friend and ally 
[Mr. Ashmun], struck upon this grand conception ; it was the battery 
with which the defunct bodies of banks, tariffs, distribution, et id omne 
genus, were to be galvanized into a renewed existence. Verily, whom 
the gods would destroy, they first make mad. Go on ; take sides 
against your country ; sympathize with Mexico ; refuse, if you dare, to 
vote supplies to carry on this war ; strengthen the issue you have 
already presented ; make the breach wider and wider between us, and 
when the people decide the contest, they will exalt the men who stand 
by the stars and stripes, and consign to a merited ignominy every man 
who dares outrage their sense of patriotism by "giving aid and comfort 
to the enemy." 

How is it proposed to raise money to carry on this war ? The Presi- 
dent and Secretary of the Treasury propose a loan, an issue of treasury 
notes, and a duty on tea and coffee. The gentlemen from Pennsyl- 
vania [Mr. Wilmot] and Indiana [Mr. Smith], and other gentlemen, 
take fire at this proposition to tax tea and coffee, and pour out their 



118 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

piteous lamentations over the distresses of the poor man. When, sir, • 
did these gentlemen first learn to sympathize with the poor man? Was 
it at a time when they were taxing cotton, cloth, leather, iron, coal, and ' 
salt ? Was it, sir, when they were levying protective duties on these 
articles, all of which enter into the poor man's consumption? The gen- 
tleman from Vermont [Mr. Marsh] pours out the fulness of his sympa- 
thetic heart over the poor man's tax on tea and coffee, and then he be- 
wails the downfall of protection. You, sir, sympathize with the poor 
man's tax! you, who would tax all the necessaries of life to give pro- 
tection to some overgrown manufacturer ! Strange and incomprehensi- 
ble logic, that we must tax the poor man's hat, his shoes, his shirt, 
his plough, his axe — everything, in short, which he consumes, not 
for the benefit of the manufacturer ! but your sympathetic hearts will 
not allow you to tax his tea and coffee to support your Government in 
time of war. You would send him shoeless, hatless, and shirtless, to 
cultivate his ground without implements, unless he pays tribute to the 
manufacturers ; only give him tea that is not taxed, and you are 
satisfied. You would lay his diseased body on a pallet that is taxed ; 
give him taxed medicine from a spoon that is taxed ; you give him un- 
taxed tea in a cup that is taxed ; he dies, and you tax his winding 
sheet, and consign him to a grave that is dug with a spade that is 
taxed, and then insult his memory by saying that you gave him untaxed 
tea. Why, sir, if I thus outraged the poor man's common sense during 
life, insulted him in his last moments, and whined a hypocritical sympa- 
thy over his tomb when dead, I should expect his ghost to rise up in 
judgment against me. 

Other gentlemen may do as they please — for me and my people, we 
go for our country. We write on our banner, " millions for defence, but 
not one cent for tribute." Tax our property, tax our supplies, ay, tax 
our tea and coffee, tax us millions on millions, for the defence of our 
country's flag and our country's honor, and we will pay it ; but if you 
ask us to pay one cent of tribute to your lordly manufacturers, we rise 
up in rebellion against you. Take our property for the defence of our 
national honor, but do not plunder us to make a rich man more rich. 

Gentlemen affect great alarm at the thought of direct taxation. The 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Stephens] seemed peculiarly nervous on 
this subject. He lashed himself into a passion, as other gentlemen 
have done, declared emphatically that he never would levy direct taxes 
on his constituents to carry on this " unnecessary and unconstitutional 
war." I beg gentlemen to quiet their nerves ; nobody has asked them to 
vote for direct taxes ; and whenever the President, or Secretary of the 
Treasury, or the Committee on Ways and Means, ask for such a tax, as 
necessary and proper, it will be time enough to discuss it. 

I shall omit much of what I intended to say, reserving for another 
occasion my views on the question of indemnity and future security, and 
upon the disposition which Congress may make of newly-acquired terri- 
tory. These and their kindred subjects will, I hope, more properly en- 
gage our attention at a later period of the session. The Government 
needs money, and we delay it in needless discussion. 

I will vote for a loan, I will vote for treasury notes, and for a tax on 
tea and coffee ; I will vote for men, regulars and volunteers ; in short, 
sir, I will vote for anything and everything that may be needed to prose- 



BOUNTY LAND BILL. 119 

cute this war to such a conclusion as the Government can accept with- 
out dishonor. My constituents will sustain me in this. They are pa- 
triots : they go for their own country, and against Mexico ; and they 
expect of their representative fealty to their views. Their motto has 
ever been, " Our country — may she be always right ; but right or 
wrong, our country." 



BOUNTY LAND BILL. 



In the House of Representatives, May 8, 1848.— The Bounty Land Bill being under 
consideration in Committee of the Whole, Mr. Brown said: 

It has not been my custom to enter very fully into the debates which 
occur in the House from day to day ; but on questions like the one now 
under consideration, it may be permitted me to express my views, and 
to assign briefly the reasons why, in my judgment, the main features of 
the bill ought to receive the favorable consideration of Congress. 

If any class of the public's numerous servants are more entitled than 
another to the special regard of the law-making and bounty-dispensing 
power of Government, it is the soldiers — the men who encounter the 
toils, the dangers, the hardships and privations of the camp — the men 
who guard the nation's honor at the peril of their lives, and sacrifice, at 
the shrine of patriotism, the comforts and security of domestic quiet. 

It is not my purpose to tax the republic with ingratitude, or to com- 
plain that the soldier's compensation is wholly inadequate to the service 
performed. Albeit the seven dollars a month which the Government 
doles out to him bears no sort of proportion to the magnitude of his 
labor. Not only do you require unceasing toil, but you demand the free 
exposure of his person to the elements, and the still freer surrender of 
his life on the field of battle. Nay, you exact a more than slavish 
obedience to the iron Avill of a military master, whom your laws have 
appointed to command him. You and I think we render a tolerable 
equivalent for our eight dollars per day, when we meet in this hall, on 
our own adjournment, sit here some three or four hours, and then close 
the business of the day. Can it be that we shall regard other men, who 
are our equals in political rights — men, equal to us in all the elements 
which compose that most extraordinary character, an American citizen 
— as sufficiently compensated for the severe toils of a soldier's life when 
we dole out to them seven dollars for a month's service ? 

I am not for increasing the monthly pay of the soldier, but I am clearly 
in favor of doing him justice by another means. I would not bankrupt 
the exchequer, nor compel the Government to go on borrowing to a 
greater extent than may be absolutely necessary. Happily, the Govern- 
ment has other means of paying her patriotic soldiery — means most 
abundant and most appropriate for this purpose. The public lands, of 
which the United States is the undisputed proprietor, can be most 
, advantageously, most wisely and properly devoted to this object. Land 
to the soldier is often equivalent to, sometimes better than, money — it 
given him a home. This, to the young enthusiast, who, forgetful of him- 



120 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

self, and casting care to the winds, has perilled all and lost all in the 
service of his country, is the richest reward that his country can bestow. 
It raises him at once above the pressure of want, it affords an outlet to 
industry, and inspires his self-confidence. It does more : it rears before 
him a lasting monument of his country's gratitude, awakening and keep- 
ing alive the noble impulses that led him to the tented field. 

If you would touch the chords of patriotism, and cause them to vibrate 
in delightful harmony, you must not grudge the soldier his honest earn- 
ings, nor pay him with a stinting hand. You do put poorly reward his 
toils who wins an empire, if you give him his daily pay and nothing 
more. There is not a scavenger in your streets that does not get as 
much as that. The Government is rich in its landed possessions, and 
out of this abundance I would freely reward the soldier's honest toils. 
I would give him a home, make him feel that he had served his country 
to some purpose. What if it take ten millions of acres of land ? I 
care not, sir, if it take ten times ten millions — who is better entitled to 
it than the man who protected, defended, perchance won it on the battle- 
field? This Government has many hundred millions of acres of land; 
it can be no great stretch of liberality to bestow a small portion of it on 
the men who gave us the whole. 

The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Vinton] has assumed some strange, 
most extraordinary positions. He says, we did not give bounty lands to 
the soldiers of the Revolution, and he thence argues that we should not 
grant the bounties contemplated in this bill. My colleague [Mr. Thomp- 
son] has already answered, that the revolutionary soldiers had been 
pensioned by the Government. A gentleman near me [Mr. Collamer] 
says the militia were not pensioned. But the gentleman knows that the 
militia were paid by the states respectively, in whose service they chiefly 
were, and to the utmost capacity of the states to pay. If they were not 
fully compensated, the reason will be found in an absolute inability to do 
so, until time had transferred them to another and, I trust, a better world. 
But if the Government has for a long time failed in the performance of 
her duty to her soldiers, is it therefore to be insisted that she never shall 
perform it ? It is not yet too late to do justice to these men of iron 
will. If any of them have survived the ravages of time, I would to-day 
greet them with the intelligence that this Government will no longer 
withhold its bounty. To me it matters not whether a soldier belongs to 
the regular line or fights as a militiaman : he equally devotes himself to 
his country, and in the one position as in the other is alike entitled to 
his country's bounty and her gratitude. 

When the gentleman from Ohio reminds us that bounty lands were not 
given to the soldiers of the Revolution, and that they were otherwise 
badly paid, he forgets that these illustrious men fought for their homes, 
their altars, and their firesides. Death was then the reward of coward- 
ice — liberty the price of victory. There were no soldiers that were not 
citizens ; no citizens that were not soldiers. All united in the struggle. 
It was a common struggle, and a common triumph. Each man gave to 
himself his own reward. When all were soldiers, they had no one but 
themselves to look to for bounty lands or other favors. Before the gen- 
tleman twits us with the remark that we are more liberal than our fathers, 
let him remember that our fathers were less able than we to be liberal, 
and had less reason to be so. They did their own fighting ; we do ours 



BOUNTY LAND BILL. 121 

by proxy. They liad no one but themselves to pay ; we have to pay the 
men who do our fighting. In the days of the Revolution every man was 
a soldier ; now, about one in fifty has gone out to battle. Before the 
gentleman cites the fact that our revolutionary fathers did not receive 
bounty lands, let him contrast the condition of this country, at the close 
of the revolutionary struggle, with its present position in the scale of 
nations. He will see thirteen small colonies just emerging from a seven 
years' conflict with the most powerful nation in the world, worn down with 
strife, Avithout credit and in debt, Avatched by the tiger eye of monarchy 
in the Old World, and without one honest republican face in all Christen- 
dom to encourage her with its sympathetic smiles. What could such a 
country do ? Look first on that picture, and now on this. We have 
twenty-nine states, and territories boundless as half a continent ; we are 
comparatively out of debt, with unlimited credit ; above the frowns of the 
world, honored, respected, feared by monarchy wherever it yet remains, 
and loved by our republican brethren throughout the world. The gen- 
tleman who cites what our fathers did not do, and could not do, as a 
controlling reason for our action, is full seventy years behind the age 
in which he lives. 

The gentleman has another reason, if possible less cogent than the 
first, for denying this bounty to the soldier. If we give lands to the 
soldier, he says the speculators will buy them for half, perhaps for less 
than half, their value. I did not expect to hear such an objection from 
a source so eminent. It is unworthy of the high source from which it 
emanates. We owe a debt, but will not pay it because our creditor in- 
tends to make an improvident use of the money. As well, sir, might 
you say that you Avill not pay the soldier in Mexico his seven dollars per 
month, because he intended to pay a sutler two prices for his merchandise, 
as to say you will not give him bounty land because he may sell it for 
half its value. The gentleman is much too kind to the soldier. Because 
he may be cheated in the sale of his land, out of very kindness the gen- 
tleman will not give him land at all. " Half a loaf is better than no 
bread;" and though a soldier might be cheated of one-half your bounty, 
the remaining half, I fanc}'', would be better than the gentleman's pro- 
position to give him nothing. It is no business of the Government what 
the soldier does with his land. Let her discharge her duty, and rely 
upon the soldier to protect his own interest. In the protection he gave 
his country, he afforded the best evidence of his capacity to take care of 
himself. 

But, says the gentleman, these lands are pledged for the redemption 
of the war debt. The gentleman forgets his own vote to grant bounties 
in land after that pledge was given. He then, doubtless, thought, and 
thought correctly, that so long as the interest on the debt is paid, and 
the stock redeemed as it falls due, the holders of public securities do 
not care a fig what you do with the public lands. The stock was never 
taken on any pledge of lands for its redemption, but on the good faith of 
the Government that the interest should be paid and the debt redeemed 
at maturity. For myself, I have no fears of a failure to meet these 
reasonable and just expectations of the stockholders, whatever may be 
your disposition of any part or the whole of the public lands. 

The gentleman enters into a minute calculation of the probable pro- 
ceeds of the sales of the public lands, and warns us, if we make these 



122 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

grants, that there will be fearful deficiency in the revenue for the next 
year. I now understand him as admitting that the estimates for the 
present fiscal year will be fully realized ; but he predicts, with great 
confidence, that there will be decided diminution in the receipts for the 
year ending June 30, 1849. Some months since, the gentleman staked 
his reputation as a financial prophet that the estimates of the Secretary 
of the Treasury for this year would be falsified by at least eight millions 
of dollars. But two months now remain of the present fiscal year. 
The gentleman's own calculations have been already exceeded by near 
five millions of dollars ; and it is morally certain that the Secretary's 
estimates will be fully equalled, and in all human probability exceeded, 
by at least one million of dollars. The gentleman has shown himself a 
false prophet, and he must excuse us if we decline to repose implicit 
confidence in his predictions for the future. " Sufiicient unto the day 
is the evil thereof." I am disinclined to indulge in evil forebodings as 
to the approaching year. The gentleman sees nothing but impenetrable 
gloom ; to my vision the sky is bright, the day dawns beautifully ; no 
cloud is seen, and no storm is anticipated. I am as confident that it 
will be a year of national and individual prosperity as the gentleman is 
that it will bring bankruptcy and ruin to the state and people. Much, 
I am free to admit, depends on the result of the presidential election. 
I have no doubt of Democratic triumph, and therefore do not doubt that 
we shall have a season of universal and uninterrupted prosperity. 

Reference has been made, in the course of this discussion, to the cost 
of the public lands ; and we have been admonished that vast sums of 
money have been paid from the general treasury for their acquisition, 
which, it is said, ought to be returned before we dispose of them too 
lavishly as bounties to soldiers. I have been at the trouble to compile, 
from official sources, a statement of the general results of the land ope- 
rations of the Government up to January, 1846. The main features of 
this statement have not, I apprehend, been materially altered by the 
operations since that time. The public lands have cost the Government 
an average of twenty-three cents per acre: 

Up to January, 1846, she had extinguished the Indian 

title to, surveyed, and oifered for sale . . . 333,215,648 acres. 

Sold up to that date 93,872,846 acres. 

Revenue from sales up to that time .... $130,280,156 

Whole cost of lands at 23 cents per acre . . . 77,130,498 

Net profit 53,149,658 

Remaining unsold . 239,342,802 acres. 

It will thus be seen that the net profit has been fifty-three millions of 
dollars and upwards, and that we have yet on hand near two hundred 
and forty millions of acres. This calculation does not include the Indian 
annuities, or the expense of our Indian wars, most of which have grown, 
I admit, mediately or immediately, out of our landed operations, and are, 
therefore, to some extent, chargeable to this account. But I must also 
remark that this calculation does not include the unsurveyed lands in 
Iowa, Wisconsin, and Nebraska ; it does not include our vast Oregon 
possessions ; and I suppose it need not be mentioned that both Cali- 
fornia and New Mexico have been excluded. Of these last it may be 
said, "we need not count our chickens before they are hatched;" but 
I will count them, and here express the opinion, that we are much more 



BOUNTY LAND BILL. 123 

likely to get two more states from Mexico than give up the two we 
already have. 

I am for disposing of the public lands freely. To the soldier who 
fights the battles of his country I would give a home, nor would I 
restrict him to very narrow limits. To every man who has no home 1 
would give one, and, so long as he and his descendants chose to occupy 
it, they should hold it against the world, without charge of any kind. 
The Government owns more than nine hundred millions of acres of land, 
and yet thousands of her citizens, and some of them her bravest and 
best soldiers, are without homes. The dependence of the Government 
and people should be mutual. If Government relies on the people for 
defence in time of war, if she expects them to fight her battles and win 
" empires" for her, the people should expect in return to be provided 
with homes ; and this reasonable expectation ought never to be disap- 
pointed. 

I have no objection to the Government selling land to those who are 
able to pay for it, at a moderate price ; but I protest my disapprobation 
of national land-jobbing. The nation degrades her character when she 
comes down to the low occupation of exacting the hard-earned dollars 
of a poor citizen for a bit of land purchased, it may have been, with the 
blood of that citizen's ancestors. To my mind, there is a national no- 
bility in a republic's looking to the comfort, convenience, and happiness 
of its people ; there is a national meanness in a republic's selling a poor 
man's home to his rich neighbor, because that neighbor can pay a better 
price for it. 

It was not my intention to enter very fully into the consideration of 
all the points embraced in the bill and the amendments. My principal 
object in rising was to give notice of an intention to introduce certain 
amendments. The first of these, is to the proposition offered by my 
colleague [Mr. Thompson]. He proposes to give those who served 
twelve months in the Northwestern army, prior to the treaty of 1795, 
or during the last war with Great Britain, for the same length of time, 
one hundred and sixty acres of land each, and to those who served six 
months eighty acres. To his proposition I shall offer this amendment: 

Insert after the words " eighty acres of land," in line — , " and any such non-com- 
missioned officer, musician, and private of any company of volunteers or militia, who 
actually served three months in said Indian war, or the war with Great Britain, shall 
be entitled to receive forty acres of land.'' 

It is right to give those who served twelve months one hundred and 
sixty acres. It is right to give those who served six months eighty acres, 
and on the same principle it is right to give those who served but three 
months forty acres of land. It will be doing equal and exact justice, 
and it is on that principle I offer the amendment. 

To the original bill, which proposes to amend the act of February 11, 
1847, granting bounty lands to soldiers, I shall propose, when it is in 
order, the following amendment, as an additional section : 

Sec. — . And be it further enacted. That the benefits of the 9tli section of the above 
recited act be extended first to the unmarried sisters, and after them to the infant 
brothers under sixteen years of age, of all deceased officers, non-commissioned officers, 
musicians, and privates, in the same manner and to the same extent that the benefits 
of said 9th section are now extended to widows, children, fathers, and mothers of 
said officers, non-commissioned officers, musicians, and privates. 



124 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

I need not elaborate this proposition. The heart of every man tells 
him at once that the defenceless sister and infant brother of a fallen 
soldier should receive that soldier's heritage, as they do his last fervent 
and dying prayers. Were it given us to witness the last scenes of the 
battle-field, how should our hearts be wrung by the agony of an expiring 
soldier, as he turns his thoughts homeward, and mentally bids farewell 
to the tender objects of his love, which he is about leaving to the cold 
charities of this Avorld. Pass this amendment, and say to the dying hero, 
in his last moments, "depart in peace, your country is friend and 
guardian to these objects of your fraternal affection." I have in my 
mind's eye more than one case of touching interest, but the time nor 
place is appropriate for the mention of them. 

I shall propose one other amendment, to wit : 

That in addition to the bounty land allowed to volunteers, by the act of 11th 
February, 1847, to raise, for a limited time, an additional military force, and for other 
purposes, there shall be a further grant to each of said volunteers of forty acres for 
every three months' service after the first twelve months. 

The justice of this proposition is so manifest, that I will not detain 
the committee with more than a passing comment. You give to the 
volunteer soldier, by the ninth section of the act of February 11, 1847, 
one hundred and sixty acres of land for twelve months' service, or forty 
acres for each three months of the first twelve. I propose to give him 
forty acres for each additional three months that he remains in the army. 
I do this for two reasons : first, that his services are richly worth the 
compensation proposed ; and secondly, that there is manifest and gross 
injustice in paying one set of volunteers one hundred and sixty acres of 
land for twelve months' service, and to another no more than one hun- 
dred and sixty acres for two, four, six, or even ten years' service, if the 
war should so long continue. 

I have no disposition to detain the committee with any further remarks. 
The sentiments I have uttered have been dictated by a sense of justice 
to a most worthy and reliable class of our population. I shall be glad 
to find them responded to by the committee, especially as they have been 
delivered with a view to procure proper action on the question involved, 
and not for home consumption. 



EXTRA PRINTED DOCUMENTS. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAT 8, 1848, ON THE DIS- 
TRIBUTION OP EXTRA PRINTED DOCUMENTS. 

[^March 20. Mr. Brown offered the following resolutions, which 

were read and agreed to : — 

Resolved, That the clerk of this House be, and he is hereby instructed to send, 
under his frank, three copies of the printed report of the Commissioner of Patents for 
the year 1847 to the governor of each state and territory in the Union, for the use of 
such state or territory, and two copies to the clerk of the county court of each county 
in the United States, for the use of the county ; and hereafter, in all cases where an 
extra number of any document is ordered to be printed, it shall be the duty of the 
clerk of the House of Representatives, unless otherwise ordered by the House, to 



EXTRA PRINTED DOCUMENTS. 125 

transmit said document to the states and counties as is herein directed ; and to this 
end, he shall reserve from the first copies delivered by the printer a suflBcient num- 
ber to supply the demands of this resolution. 

Resolved, That it shall be the duty of the clerk, before he sends the documents 
above referred to, to have the same well bound. 

May 8. Mr. Brodhead moved that the foregoing resolutions be 
rescinded.] 

Mr. Brown said: It is well known, Mr. Speaker, that I introduced 
the resolution which it is now proposed to rescind. A restless anxiety 
has been manifested to destroy it, even before it has gone into operation, 
though it was permitted to pass without serious opposition. It is said 
the resolution passed without consideration. However this may be, it 
was not introduced without reflection; nor shall it be rescinded without 
my resistance. 

It will be found, on examination, that the practical operations of the 
distribution of public documents, proposed by the resolution, will work 
none of that gross injustice of which we hear so much complaint. Take 
the Patent Office report as an example. You have ordered ninety thou- 
sand extra copies of that document to be printed, or nearly one hundred 
thousand copies in all. Of these, it is proposed to send three copies to 
each state and territory, or ninety copies to all, and two copies to each 
county in the Union, or, in the whole, twenty-five hundred and ten 
copies. To the states and counties you will distribute twenty-six hun- 
dred copies, and leave for individual distribution over ninety-five thousand 
copies. The documents thus sent to the states and counties would be 
the only ones given to the public ; all the rest are devoted to private 
uses. I know of no authority to print books at the national expense to 
be presented to private persons. It may be very pleasant for members 
of Congress to vote to themselves hundreds of thousands of valuable 
books, at the expense of the general treasury. It is certainly very con- 
venient to have these books on hand when we feel like making a present 
to some valuable and influential friend ; and it has the additional merit 
of being the cheapest possible mode of displaying our liberality. But 
by what right is this thing done ? By the right of precedent. It is one 
of the thousand abuses which have grown up from time to time, and 
which I have very little hope of seeing speedily corrected. The most I 
hoped to accomplish was to induce you to surrender to public use a very 
small number of the many thousand volumes for which the public pay. 
It is something to a member of Congress, Avho holds his seat by a doubt- 
ful tenure, to hav? it in his power, without one cent of personal cost, to 
exhibit a mark of special attachment to five or six hundred influential 
persons in his district, by sending each a valuable book. This is an 
advantage not readily surrendered; but I had hoped that a decent 
respect for the public, who pay the whole cost, would have induced us 
to give them a few volumes. But the cormorant who once feeds on pap 
like this is slow to give it up. 

You have printed, as I have before said, nearly one hundred thousand 
copies of a single document, or about four hundred and forty-five for each 
member ; and you have paid, or will pay, for them out of the public 
funds. What is to be done with these books — printed, bound, folded, 
and laid on your tables, as they are, at the public cost ? You write 
your name on the envelope, and they are then carried to the post office at 



126 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the cost of the public, conveyed to your special friends in the public 
mail, and on their safe arrival become their private property. You have 
no more right to print books in this way for private uses than you have 
to make any other presents at the public expense. Suppose, instead of 
a proposition to print ninety-eight thousand copies of the Patent Office 
report, or four hundred and forty-five for each member (myself among 
the rest), to be distributed according to the inclination of the members, 
^, or any other member, had come forward with four hundred and forty- 
five names, and proposed the publication of a volume for each one of 
them : is there a member of this House Avho would have sanctioned such 
a proposition? Not one, sir, I venture to assert; and yet this would 
have been a better proposition than the one you have adopted ; for by it 
you would at least have known who were to be the recipients of the 
public favor. In common parlance, these books are printed for public 
distribution, and gentlemen say they want them sent to the public ; but 
by what process of reasoning it is to be shown that ninety thousand 
favorites are the public, in a nation of twenty millions of people, I have 
not been informed. I have proposed to send a very small portion of- 
these publications to the public (about one in thirty-six and a half) ; no 
one else has proposed to send a single copy. If you will send, accord- 
ing to my proposition, two copies of a book to the clerk of the county 
court, for the use of the county, you thereby send it to the people of the 
county ; it belongs as much to one as to another, and may at any time 
be examined or consulted by all those who desire to be informed as to 
its contents. 

If books are printed, they ought to be preserved ;, and if they are 
intended for public use, they ought to be placed where the public can 
consult them. It is known to every member of Congress that many 
documents are wasted, literally destroyed here ; and when their value is 
made manifest in some future investigation or discussion, they are pro- 
cured with great difficulty. In some instances they are found in the 
shops and book stores ; and, as happened with myself the other day, are 
purchased at some ten or twenty times the original cost of printing. I 
mention this for the purpose of reminding gentlemen that much that 
seems to be of no value to-day, may, and will, in the course of time, 
come to be sought for with avidity. Then let these documents be pre- 
served ; send them to the country, where they will be taken care of, and 
where you and I, and every other man in the community, may find and 
consult them at pleasure. You may send twenty or fifty copies to as 
many individuals in a county, and you accommodate only that number 
of persons ; send one or two copies to the county, and you accommodate, 
to a considerable extent, every man in the county. 

Suppose, sir, this or some similar proposition had been adopted twenty 
years ago, and faithfully carried out; you would now have a respectable 
political library at every county seat in the United States. Is there a 
member of this House who would not feel gratified to have, at the court 
house of each county in his district, a copy of all the extra documents 
printed by order of Congress for twenty years past? What you may 
thus have had, you may now have, to a much greater extent, at the end 
of another twenty years, by simply letting my resolution alone. The 
growth of the country, the increasing interest in public affairs, and the 
vast improvements in the art of printing, will greatly augment the num- 



EXTRA PRINTED DOCUMENTS. 127 

ber of publications in future. In the course of a few years you will 
thus find valuable little libraries rising up all over the country, costing 
nothing, and conferring great benefits on all who now take, or may 
hereafter take, an interest in public affairs. 

I am surprised that my friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Brodhead], 
Democrat as he is, proverbially liberal and sound in his views on alm.ost 
all subjects, should take the lead in opposition to this measure. The 
reason, the only reason he assigns for this course is, to my mind, ex- 
tremely fallacious. That one Congressional district has more counties 
than another, and will therefore receive a larger number of documents, 
is the narrowest of all possible reasons for desiring to rescind this reso- 
lution. Documents are published for the public instruction, and should 
therefore be placed in reach of the public. The city and county of 
Philadelphia has a voting population equal to the states of Delaware, 
Arkansas, and Texas ; but it is a condensed population, and the con- 
venience of the whole may be subserved by one library, located at a 
central and convenient point ; and if the public convenience is answered, 
that is all that is required. But one, two, or three libraries in the states 
just named would not answer a like general purpose, because of the want 
of proximity of the population to the location of the library. My reso- 
lution proposes to place these books at the county sites of the several 
counties in the United States, because these are places where people of 
all classes meet to transact business of public and private interest ; and 
with the clerks of county courts, because these are ofiicers having charge 
of county papers, books, and records, and with whom people have con- 
stant intercourse. Their ofiices are public places accessible at all times 
to the people. My sole view in introducing the resolution was, to place 
the documents published by order of Congress, and paid for out of the 
public treasury, in the reach of every man who desired to consult them. 
I did not then, and do not now, believe that this House ought to print 
books solely for private uses, and pay for them with the people's money. 
I contemplated no injustice to any one. Having introduced the pro- 
position, it was proper that I should vindicate it. If gentlemen would 
forget their own personal advantage, derived from a distribution of these 
documents, and look a little to the public interest, the resolution as 
introduced by me, and passed by the House, would stand ; but it is 
probably destined to be rescinded. I have no more interest in the 
matter than any other member, and, so far as I am personally concerned, 
it is a matter of profound indifference what disposition you may make 
of it. 



128 ALBERT G. BROWN. 



TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT FOR OREGON. 

On the 29th of May, 1848, President Polk communicated to Congress a message, 
recommending that a territorial government be early provided for Oregon, and 
also that a military force be at once raised for the protection of the people of that 
territory. Mr. Cobb of Georgia, immediately upon the reading of the message, 
moved that the bill providing a territorial government for Oregon be at once taken 
up and disposed of. Mr. Haralson of Georgia opposed the motion of his colleague, 
and favored action first on the proposition to raise a military force. The questions 
embraced in the territorial bill were of such a character that discussion upon them 
was unavoidable. Mr. Brown of Mississippi opposed a hurried decision of the 
vital question, of the power of Congress over the territories, involved in the ter- 
ritorial bill, in the following remarks : — 

He said he intended to favor the proposition of his friend from 
Georgia, who last had the floor [Mr. Haralson], and to express very 
briefly his opposition to the course taken by his other friend from 
Georgia [Mr. Cobb]. He was as willing as any other member of Con- 
gress that the two Houses should act immediately upon the proposition 
to give efficient and immediate relief to the people of the territory of 
Oregon. He believed it was their duty to afibrd that aid promptly. 
But he objected to the proposition of his friend over the Avay [Air. Cobb], 
because it contemplated the hurried passage through the House, of a 
bill involving the most important question Avhich agitated the people of 
this country. Whenever that question was fairly before Congress, he, 
for one, desired to hear it discussed by men of all political complexions, 
and from every portion of the confederacy. He had no idea of seeing 
the great question of the power of Congress over the territories forced 
through under the gag. Let the two questions be separated ; let the 
message be referred to the committee on military affairs, and they 
report that sort of relief which the occasion required ; and when the 
Oregon territory bill came up, let them have a full and fair discussion 
upon the territorial question. He thought he saw the object of the 
gentleman from Georgia ; in the smoke created by the President's mes- 
sage, in the excitement at the condition of our people in Oregon, to force 
this question through under the gag, and get clear of this question, 
involving the most weighty consequences to this entire confederacy, and 
especially the southern portion of it. However it might affect presiden- 
tial aspirants, he could not sanction the attempt to blink the question 
and force it through under the gag. He wished, at the proper time, to 
express his views upon it, as other gentlemen had done upon occasions 
when the question did not properly arise. He was not willing that the. 
views of the gentleman from Georgia, who had first addressed the House, 
should go as the views of the southern portion of this confederacy. He 
hoped, therefore, the gentleman's proposition would be rejected, and 
that of the other gentleman from Georgia receive the sanction of the 
House. Whether the views of gentlemen might agree with those of others, 
or with those of presidential aspirants, it mattered not ; let every gentle- 
man express his own views and those of his constituents boldly, fear- 
lessly. This he intended to make his course. 



GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORIES. 129 



GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORIES. 

In the House of Representatives of the United States, Saturday, June 3, 1848, in 
Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, Mr. Brown said : — 

Mr. Chairman, when I had the honor, some weeks since, to deliver 
my views at length in regard to the Mexican war, I closed with the re- 
mark that at some future day I would discuss the question of " indem- 
nity and security," and submit my opinions as to the powers of Congress 
over newly acquired territory. The treaty lately ratified by the Ame- 
rican Senate, if it meets the favor in Mexico, which its friends and the 
friends of peace here and elsewhere so ardently hope for, will settle for 
the time being the question of " indemnity for the past and security for 
the future." Outside of the treaty, we can look to no indemnity, nor 
can we ask any further security than such as may be provided in that 
convention. 

The time seems appropriate for an expression of my views in regard 
to the powers of Congress over newly acquired territory. It is so, not 
only on account of the territory acquired, or to be acquired by the 
treaty, but because the 12th section of the bill now before Congress, to 
organize a territorial government in Oregon, assumes a power over the 
territories not, in my opinion, guarantied to Congress by the Constitu- 
tion. It proposes to extend the ordinance of July, 1787, over the ter- 
ritory of Oregon ; and we have heard it boldly proclaimed, in and out 
of Congress, that the sixth section of that ordinance is to be extended 
to all the territories of the United States. That section is in these 
words : — 

"Art. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said ter- 
ritory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have 
been duly convicted: Provided, always. That any person escaping into the same, 
from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, 
such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his 
or her labor or service as aforesaid." 

This is -the only part of the ordinance that relates to the subject of 
slavery, as I find it recorded in the journals of the Continental Con- 
gress, as having passed July 13, 1787, page 754, vol. 4, House Li- 
brary. 

On page 373 of the same volume, it is recorded that 

'Congress took into consideration the report of a committee, consisting of Mr. 
Jefi'erson, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Howell, to whom was ?e-committed their report of a 
plan for a temporary government of the western territory ; 

" When a motion was made by Mr. Speight, seconded by Mr. Read, to strike out 
the following paragraph : 

" ' That after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states [meaning the states to be created 
from said territory], otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall 
have been convicted to have been guilty.' " 

And on the question being taken, the words were struck out New 

Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New 
Jersey, and Pennsylvania, voting in the affirmative ; Maryland and 
South Carolina in the negative ; Virginia and North Carolina divided ; 
9 



130 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Georgia and Delaware not present. This was on the 19th of April, 
1784. On the 23d of the same month, the plan was adopted without 
the paragraph thus stricken out — page 379. I cite these things for the 
purpose of remarking, that in this early day of the republic, the only 
opposition to slavery was found in the South ; Pennsylvania and other 
northern states, which then had an interest in its existence, were op- 
posed (if we may rely upon their votes) to circumscribing its limits. 
And when, in 1787, by the ordinance for the government of the North- 
western Territory, the resolves of April 23, 1784, were repealed, and 
slavery and involuntary servitude were denied existence in said terri- 
tory, it was with a proviso — not such as that which now disturbs the 
deliberations of Congress, and threatens the harmony of the Union — but 
a proviso " that persons escaping into such territory, from whom labor 
or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such 
fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming 
his or her labor or service as aforesaid." This proviso, thus clearly and 
distinctly recognising and securing the master's property in his slave, 
seems to have reconciled the northern states, for we find them voting 
for the proposition in this form. Massachusetts, New York, New Jer- 
sey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, 
were the only states present, and they all voted for the ordinance with 
this proviso. The northern states, now so boisterous against the right 
of property in slaves, could only be reconciled to this ordinance, now 
their political Shibboleth, by its clear and distinct recognition of the 
right of property in slaves. Without this recognition, they were unani- 
mously opposed to it ; with it, they were as unanimously in favor of 
it. They seemed at this time not disposed to send slaves to the west 
whose labor might come in competition with the labor of slaves else- 
where ; but if slaves absconded into that country, the rights of the mas- 
ter were made secure to follow and recapture them. Do gentlemen who 
stickle so much for the ordinance of 1787, now recognise this guarantied 
right of property in slaves ? What says the member from Ohio [Mr. 
Giddings], and he of New Hampshire [Mr. Tuck], and of Massachusetts 
[Mr. Ashmun] ? What say you all of the Abolition school ? Will you 
admit this right of property, or do you recede entirely from the position 
assumed by the very men you pretend to follow ? They voted against 
the ordinance when it DID NOT recognise property in slaves, and for it 
when it did so recognise it. You are for the ordinance without this re- 
cognition, and against it with it ; and yet you claim the men who passed 
the ordinance as your guides and your example. You unhesitatingly 
proclaim a right in Congress to extend the first part of this ordinance 
over all the territories of the United Stotes, and I as unhesitatingly 
assert that Congress has no power to extend it over any part of those terri- 
tories. The powers of the Continental Congress of 1787 and the 
United States Congress of 1848 are widely different. The first acted 
under Articles of Confederation, the last under a written Constitution. 
In maintaining, as I do, that the Constitution, no less than the ordi- 
nance, recognises the master's property in his slave, I am not to be un- 
derstood as saying that slavery was established by the one or the other ; 
very far from it. The Continental Congress, and after it the conven- 
tion that framed the Federal Constitution, found slavery in existence. 
The relation between master and servant was established in the earlier days 



GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORIES. 131 

of our colonial existence. I have in my possession a copy of the " Bos- 
ton Gazette," a newspaper printed in the city of Boston, January 22, 
1739. This sheet, now more than one hundred years old, contains these 
advertisements : — 

" If any person has a young negro woman (that can be well recommended) to dis- 
pose of, they may hear of a purchaser by inquiring of the publisher." 

" A young negro, not twenty-two years old, who has served seven years to the 
tailor's trade, and understands household business and cooking tolerably well, to be 
SOLD. Inquire of the printer." 

And again : — 

" A negro man, about twenty-six years of age, fit for town or country business, to 
BE SOLD. Inquire of the printer. This negro has been above seven years to the 
business of ship-carpentering." 

Considering that the Boston Gazette at that day was, by actual mea- 
surement, just eight inches wide and ten inches long, it will be confessed 
it had tolerable patronage in the business of advertising negroes for 
sale. 

By reference to a volume, entitled "History of Slavery," it will be 
seen that not many years since, Providence, Boston, and other New 
England cities were great slave marts. The traflBc was conducted in its 
most revolting forms throughout New England and the Middle States — 
so much so, indeed, that the anti-slavery missionaries were sorely grieved, 
and in one instance a pious old man, of great learning and vast philan- 
thropy, is said to have died of grief, after visiting Rhode Island and 
witnessing the conduct of slave-owners and slave-dealers in that state. 

It is not my purpose to trace the history of slavery and the slave 
trade, in the states now so clamorous in favor of universal emancipation ; 
but I may ask if it is quite modest in them, so lately recovered from 
this "moral leprosy," as they are pleased to call the institution of 
slavery, to taunt and jeer us for its continued existence in the South, 
seeing that they brought it among us, cherished and cultivated its 
growth, and finally sold it to us for gold and silver. 

Mine is a different purpose. I desire to investigate the powers of 
government over slavery as it now exists, and as it did exist at the adop- 
tion of our present form of government. I do not pretend that the Con- 
stitution established slavery ; it was not necessary for it to do so. It 
found it in existence, already established. I assert that it clearly re- 
cognised it as a thing in esse — something fixed, established, interwoven 
with the future destiny of the country. In proof of this, and without 
elaborating the point, I refer to the 2d section, 4th article of the Con- 
stitution, and to the 2d section, article 1, of the same instrument ; and 
if these be not sufficient, the man who doubts may satisfy his mind 
beyond dispute or cavil, by consulting the debates in convention on these 
two sections of the Federal Constitution. The question Avhich we are 
now to consider is not, who or what first planted slavery in America ? 
but, what are the powers of Congress over the question as it now is ? 
This must be ascertained by a rule of construction long since established, 
and now by all true republicans acquiesced in as sound and orthodox. 
This rule limits the powers of Congress, under the Constitution, to the 
performance of such acts as are expressly permitted by the delegated 



132 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

authority from the states, and to such other incidental acts as may be 
necessary to carry out the expressly granted powers. Under what 
clause in the Constitution does the power exist to intermeddle with the 
question of slavery, or to extend the ordinance of 1787 over newly ac- 
quired territory ? You claim the power to extend the ordinance under 
the authority " to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations 
respecting the territories and other property of the United States." 
Can any man read this third section of the fourth article of the Consti- 
tution, and come to any other conclusion than that the territories are 
treated of as property ? Congress has power over the territories and 
other property of the United States. This, it will not be contended, 
conveys any express authority to exclude settlements or to deny admis- 
sion to the institution of slavery. 

May these things be done as the fair incidents to the power expressly- 
given, "to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the terri- 
tories and OTHER PROPERTY of the United States ?" It would be strange 
indeed, if the inferior grant contained in the Constitution to legislate 
over the territories as property — the common property of the United 
States— should carry with it, as a necessary incident, the vastly more 
important power of regulating the political institutions of these territo- 
ries now, and for all after time, to exclude the citizens of one-half the 

Union, and totally to deny admission to an institution recognised, if not 
established, by the Constitution. The subordinate would thus rise above 
its superior, and the incidental become paramount to the express grant. 
The ordinance is in itself a nullity, so far us these territories are con- 
cerned. It dates anterior to the Constitution, having been adopted July 
13, 1787. The Constitution, as is well known, was not finally acted on 
in convention until September 17, 1787, and it was accepted by the 
states in the following order: Delaware, December 7, 1787 ; Pennsyl- 
vania, December 12, 1787 ; New Jersey, December 18, 1787 ; Georgia, 
January 2, 1788 ; Connecticut, January 8, 1788 ; Massachusetts, Feb- 
ruary 6, 1788 ; Maryland, April 28, 1788 ; South Carolina, May 23, 
1788; New Hampshire, June 21, 1788; Virginia, June 26, 1788; New 
York, July 26, 1788 ; North Carolina, November 21, 1789 ; Rhode 
Island, May 29, 1790. The Constitution was not established until it 
had been ratified by nine states. New Hampshire accepted it June 21, 
1788, and she was the ninth state in this order that ratified it. It will 
be thence seen that the ordinance was adopted nearly twelve months 
before the Federal Constitution was established. ^ If this ordinance had 
been expressly recognised in the Constitution, it would have put the 
question at rest for ever, so far as the Northwestern territory, to which 
it alone relates, is concerned. If it had been extended in express terms 
to other territories, it would have been conclusive as to the powers of 
Congress. The question was then before the country, and the power of 
Congress over slavery was prominently before the convention. That we 
do not find the principles of the ordinance incorporated into the Consti- 
tution, is presumptive evidence that it was not intended to delegate to 
the federal power authority such as is now claimed over the territories. 
It may be said that the C«^stitution did not abrogate the ordinance, and 
therefore left it in force. So far as the territory to which it relates is con- 
cerned, this may be true. I neither deny nor admit the truth of that 
proposition. But most certainly an omission to abrogate an ordinance 



GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORIES. 133 

applicable alone to the Northwestern territory, would not, ex necessitate 
ret, extend its provisions to territories thereafter to be acquired. The 
territory of Oregon is by some claimed as a part of the Louisiana pur- 
chase ; others, I know, base our title upon the grounds of discovery and 
settlement ; no one pretends that it is any part of the Northwestern ter- 
ritory, the Mississippi being the utmost western limit of that country. 
But through whatever source we may derive our title, I cannot be mis- 
taken in the position that the country must be governed by the consti- 
tution, convention, ordinances, and laws, in force at the time the cession 
was obtained or the discovery made, and applicable to the territory ac- 
quired or discovered. It is incompetent for Congress to impose other 
limitations and restrictions than those in force at the period of the acqui- 
sition, and applicable to the thing acquired. The ordinance of 1787 
having been enacted anterior to the adoption of the Constitution, under 
Articles of Confederation which were superseded by the Constitution, 
could only stand, if stand it must, by the forbearance of the convention, 
but could not rise above or mingle its existence with the Constitution, 
which became, on its acceptance by the states, the paramount law of the 
land. The ordinance, therefore, so far as newly acquired territory is 
concerned, is a dead letter, and we must look to the Constitution for 
the rule of our conduct in the government of such territory, as we do on 
all other questions ; and that Constitution, so far from giving the power 
to extend the ordinance, does, in my judgment, prohibit it. But before 
I enter on this part of the subject, allow me to respond to certain argu- 
ments which have been, and will again be, founded on supposed prece- 
dents. We shall be told, that by the act of March 6, 1820, and the 
several succeeding acts admitting Missouri into the Union, commonly 
called the Missouri compromise, the power in Congress, to a limited ex- 
tent, to exclude slavery from a territory, was conceded. 

The argument is neither just nor sound ; but its introduction here 
gives me an opportunity, which I eagerly embrace, of expressing my 
opinions of that compromise. It has been the theme of many eloquent 
harangues ; and of all the thousand orators who have thrown garlands 
on the brow of its great author, or strown his pathway with richest 
flowers, none have apostrophized more eloquently than those whose 
theme has been this far-famed Missouri compromise. But, notwith- 
standing this, it stands out, "a fungus, an excrescence, a political 
monstrosity." It was the first, greatest, and most fatal error in our 
legislation on the subject of slavery. It violated at once the rights of 
one-half the Union, and flagrantly outraged the Federal Constitution. It 
undertook to abrogate the constitutional privileges of one-half the states, 
and, without any adequate or sufiicient consideration, to surrender the 
rights of every slaveholder in the Union. The compromise has been 
called a contract. But a contract, to be binding, must be mutual in its 
obligations : there must be something given on one side, and something 
received on the other. By this compromise — this misnamed contract — 
the slave states gave up their right of settlement north of the parallel 
36° 30' ; but the non-slaveholding states did not surrender their right 
to settle south of that line. The free states have all the rights they 
, ever had. The South gave everything, and received nothing. North 
of 36° 30' no slaveholder dare go with his slaves ; south every northern 
man may settle with whatever chattels he possesses. The compromise 



134 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

is wanting in all the elements of mutuality which render a contract 
binding, and is therefore void. This thirtieth Congress has no right to 
surrender, bj gift or barter, the political rights of one-half of the con- 
federacy, or even one state of the Union; and yet this Congress has all 
the constitutional powers that belonged to the sixteenth Congress, which 
enacted the compromise. It has no more, nor less. The powers wliich 
belong to this Congress have belonged to every one since the adoption 
of the Federal Constitution; and they must remain unimpaired to each 
succeeding Congress. Political rights are not the subjects of bargain 
and sale under the Constitution ; and if one Congress, forgetting what is 
due to its successors, surrenders any of these rights, they may be resumed 
by any subsequent Congress : and this ought especially to be done if the 
surrender has been made without consideration. In the case of the 
Missouri compromise, the South has not only got nothing that did not 
belong to her before, but has purchased, by an unwise and unconstitu- 
tional surrender of her rights above the compromise line, insecurity and 
perpetual annoyance to her interests below it. Already we are told that 
the contract is binding only on one side. Whilst we are forbidden to 
carry slavery north of 36° 30', the enemies of that institution proclaim 
a settled purpose to exclude it from the territories south ; and, strange 
as it may seem, cite the compromise act as a concession on our part of 
their right to do so. I know not which most excites my wonder, that we 
should have entered into this naked contract, or that they who have all 
the advantages should be the first to violate it, and, in the very act of 
its violation, proclaim its binding force upon us. We tamely give up 
one-half our rights, without consideration and without security, and then 
are told, that, because we gave up one-half, Ave must now give up the 
other half also. I suppose we are expected to carry out literally the 
scriptural rule — "If a man sue you at the law and take your coat, give 
him your cloak also." I know not if the South will consent to be thus 
led to the slaughter-house; but if she does, I freely proclaim that she 
deserves no better fate than there awaits her. So far as the introduction 
of the ordinance of 1787, or the Wilmot proviso, into the Oregon bill, is 
concerned, it is the veriest abstraction that was ever thrust into any bill 
by bad men for bad purposes. Nature has erected an insuperable barrier 
against the introduction of slaves into Oregon, as she has, indeed, against 
its introduction into any territory above the parallel 36° 30'. It is not, 
then, that you fear its introduction there. It can never go there ; no 
one here expects or desires that it ever should. Then why thrust the 
proviso into the Oregon bill ? You have done it for the purpose of 
forcing the South to admit by her vote, if she votes in favor of the bill 
in its present form, that " Congress may exclude slavery from a terri- 
tory;" and this admission you intend to use against her in after time, 
when we come to legislate for New Mexico and California ; or, if we 
vote to strike out this proviso, we are to be charged with a disposition 
to introduce slavery into Oregon: and this when you know full Avell that 
there is not one man in Congress who desires or expects that slavery is 
ever to exist in Oregon, or in any other territory above 36° 30'. 

Before I progress further in my remarks, let me turn to a speech made 
by an honorable member from Maine [Mr. Smart], some several weeks 
since. He is a bold man. He comes forward as a sort of Jupiter 
Tonans of the anti-slavery men in his state, asserting that Maine has 



GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORIES. 135 

taken her position against "slavery and involuntary servitude in the 
territories," and adduces what he calls "precedents" for the legislation 
by Congress over the question ; and because he finds what he fancies a 
precedent, he thence concludes that he is right in the bold assumption 
that Congress may rightfully exclude slavery from the territories. Did it 
never occur to the gentleman that precedents might be wrong? Does 
he mean to assert the perfect infallibility of our "illustrious pi-edeces- 
sors ?" If so, I warn him that he bestows a meed of praise which those 
who come after us will be slow to award him and his associates. For 
myself, I respect precedents just so far as they are within the pale of 
the Constitution, and are sustained by reason and sound sense, and no 
further. 

But what does the gentleman's precedents amount to ? Nothing, sir ; 
literally nothing. First, we are told that Congress, by an act of March 
26, 1804, provided that no slave should be brought into Louisiana, then 
a territory, except by citizens of the United States. Well, sir, what of 
that ? Does the gentleman mean to put citizens of the slave states on 
no better footing than foreigners ? Does he intend to make aliens of 
them — to remove them from under the protecting influence of the Con- 
stitution ? We contend that all the citizens of the United States have 
equal rights in the territories, and no more than equal rights; and 
whilst we admit that a citizen of Maine may freely settle in any terri- 
tory of the United States, with his goods and chattels, of whatever kind 
or description, we ask the same, and no greater, right for citizens of 
slave states. But, says the gentleman, Congress has denied to foreigners 
the right to carry slaves to the territories, and therefore may exclude a 
citizen of Mississippi with his slaves. Let me remind the gentleman of 
"what seems not to have occurred to him, that the people of the slave 
states are citizens of the United States, and have rights under the 
Federal Constitution which do not belong to foreigners — rights equal 
with those of the free states ; and in this he may find a full answer to 
his precedent. The gentleman was not more fortunate in his second 
precedent. He informs us that by so recent an act as of June 30, 1834, 
Congress abrogated an act of the Legislative Council of Florida, which 
act levied higher taxes on slaves belonging to non-residents than on those 
belonging to citizens of the territory. It seems to me, the honorable 
gentleman was hard pressed for a precedent when he seized on this. So 
far from the act of Congress which annulled the unequal tax law of 
Florida operating to exclude slavery from the territory, it was calculated, 
in an eminent degree, to encourage its introduction there. The climate 
ttnd the general uncultivated state of the country at that time were well 
calculated to deter the planters in the Carolinas and Georgia from 
making a personal residence in the territory. But many of them, in- 
vited by the wonderful productiveness of the soil, chose to settle planta- 
tions there. The Legislative Council of Florida, desiring a white 
population, adopted the plan of levying a discriminating tax, with a view 
of forcing a white emigration to the country. This, Congress abrogated, 
or rather declined to sanction ; and for the reason, I suppose, that it was 
violative of the great conservative principle, that taxation must be equal. 
Whether Congress has the right to interfere at all with the legislature 
of a territory may be well questioned. But if interference is ever ad- 
missible, this was just such a case as would justify it ; and in it I recognise 



136 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

no pretence of authority over the question of slavery. The act was 
calculated in its effects to promote the growth of slavery in the terri- 
tory, though the design was simply to vindicate a great republican 
principle. 

But there is another paragraph of the gentleman's speech so extra- 
ordinary, so strangely conceived, that I will be excused for adverting to 
it. The gentleman says, "We are told by some that the 'territories are 
the common property of the whole Union, and that all the citizens of all 
the states have a right to go to them with their property.' " Exactly 
so, sir ; I could not have stated my own views more fairly. We do con- 
tend for an equal interest in the common property of tlie nation ; but, 
unlike the gentleman, we claim no exclusive rights. How does the gen- 
tleman proceed to combat this idea — I had almost said this self-evident 
proposition? Why, says he, "gentlemen owning slaves may hold them 
on every square mile of the territory, and thus propagating slavery, they 
may exclude both the tenants and their property from the free states as 
effectually as if they were excluded by law." Was ever so feeble an 
argument made to sustain so poor a cause ? What rights have the slave- 
owners there — what have they ever claimed that they do not freely 
concede to you, in an equal degree with themselves ? The slave-owner 
purchases the fee in the soil from the Government, and settles on it with 
his slaves; and anon the anti-slavery man makes his purchase, and settles 
down in close proximity: does any slaveholder say this shall not be 
done ? Is there any disposition, an3'where, to exclude the emigrant from 
a free state ? None, sir, none. But the gentleman goes on — " With 
the acquisition of California and New Mexico, our country will embrace 
an area of about 2,600,000 square miles. Of this immense territory, 
2,000,000 of square miles would be open to slavery, and less than 600,000 
to FREEDOM." I will not charge the gentleman with a wilful intention 
to mislead the public mind ; but I will say that no case was ever more 
speciously stated and with so little of real candor. Is there one inch of 
territory within the broad area of this Union from which freedom is ex- 
cluded ? Is there one acre of soil in any one of the states or territories, 
to which a citizen of Maine may not acquire a title, and on which he 
may not rear his castle of defence, and sit himself down, with his ■pro'perty 
and family around him? Yes, sir, two millions six hundred thousand 
square miles, embracing thirty states, and territories equal to ten other 
states as large as Mississippi, are now open to the occupancy of the 
citizens of the free states, their families, and their property ; whilst the 
slaveholder is already confined to fourteen states, including Dela- 
ware, and you desire still further to circumscribe these narrow limits. 
A citizen of Maine may come, as hundreds have come, to Mississippi, 
with his property of every kind. But a Mississippian dare not go to 
Maine with his property ; and yet the representative from that state 
tells us that the slaveholder may exclude the people of Maine from the 
new territories ; that the slaveholders will multiply themselves like the 
locusts of Egypt, and overrun the whole country; and that modest, re- 
tiring New England will find the doors of the territories closed against 
her. 

Why, sir, lands, as we all know, in the new states are like the waters 
of life, to be had without money and without price. Let the gentleman 
and his constituents come freely ; we shall be glad to receive them, to 



GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORIES. 137 

make slaveholders of them. But if they prefer to cultivate soil witli 
their own hands, or to perform their labor without the aid of slaves, they 
will find hundreds and thousands of white men doing the same thing, 
and not in any degree less honored and less respected on that account. 

The gentleman will allow me to say that I judge men's faith by their 
works. If he will come south, enter upon our rich lands, cultivate cot- 
ton, toil in the open sun as our people toil, sell the products of his labor, 
invest the money in negroes, and set them free, he will have shown his 
faith by his works ; but I take leave to say that we do not hear with 
much complaisance a people who have grown rich off our labor through 
the operation of unequal revenue laws, ask us to emancipate our slaves, 
to throw away our labor, merely because their tender consciences are 
lacerated by the existence of slavery in our part of the Union. 

Congress, I have said, has no power under the Constitution to exclude 
slavery from the territories. The exercise of such a power is equivalent 
to the bold assertion of a right to exclude the inhabitants of fourteen 
states of this Union from all participation in the enjoyment and owner- 
ship of the property of all the states. True, you do not say in terms 
to the southern slaveholder, "you shall not settle in the territories;" 
but you concede him the right to do so, only on condition that he will 
leave his slaves behind. Thus you concede a right, and then virtually 
annul it by making its exercise depend upon the abandonment of another 
right still more important. To yourselves you concede everything and 
deny nothing. I dispute your right thus to discriminate ; and at once, 
and without hesitation, proclaim the great political truth, which lies at 
the foundation of all our institutions, of equal and exact justice to all. 

The power to exclude a citizen of the United States with his property, 
or to close the doors of the territories against the admission of a con- 
stitutionally recognised institution of the country, is not found among 
the powers delegated to Congress. It is in itself an important and sub- 
stantive power, and not the mere incident to some given power. It is 
a thing to be done by the sovereign, and not by a subordinate. In whom 
does the sovereignty over the territories reside? In the people of the 
states, in their separate and distinct capacity as such, and in contradis- 
tinction to their general capacity as citizens of the United States. I 
maintain the sovereignty of the people by states, and repudiate the idea 
of a consolidated sovereignty in the people of the United States. The 
states, or the people of the states, in their state capacity may, in con- 
vention, exclude slavery or any other institution from the territories, 
because they have the right of sovereignty — a right which has never 
been delegated to any other power. Congress may have a right to 
legislate for the territories ; but if so, it is a right limited by the terms 
of the Constitution, and does not affect the question of sovereignty. 
" The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively 
or to the people," is the language of the Constitution. The power over 
slavery — an institution recognised in the Constitution — was not dele- 
gated, and therefore cannot be exercised. Within the states respectively, 
it belongs to the state, and in the territories it is reserved to the people. 
Congress has no other powers or jurisdiction than such as it derived 
from the states. The power over slavery was not thus derived. A state 
has jurisdiction only within its limits, and has not, therefore, any power 



138 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

over the territories. It is, in truth, a power denied to the states, not 
delegated to Congress, and must, in the language of the Constitution, 
be "reserved to the people." The federal and state governments having 
carved out their respective portions from the mass of political powers, 
the residue remains to the people, and among these is the sovereignty 
over the territories. 

The people hold the territories as tenants in common, and all or any 
part of them may enter these territories from any and all parts of the 
United States, and take with them their property. They may enact 
laws for their personal protection and the preservation of their property, 
but they cannot exclude others who come after them from the possession 
and enjoyment of equal rights with themselves. 

The first who enter the territory cannot assume a sovereignty which 
belongs to all. The specific exercise of sovereignty over the question 
of slavery is held in abeyance until the people of the territory ask 
admission into the Union as a state, according to the Constitution ; and 
being admitted, the state becomes sovereign within her limits. The 
power of sovereignty here passes from the people to the state, and the 
state, in the exercise of this sovereignty, may exclude slavery if she 
thinks proper. Up to this period, no power exists to exclude it but in 
the people, acting through a convention of the states. Many political 
rights were delegated to the states, and many others to the United States. 
But the people wisely reserved the sovereignty of the territories to 
themselves. Am I asked, what is to be done if the first inhabitants of a 
territory undertake to exclude slavery? I reply, that they are not more 
likely to exclude a slaveholder than a non-slaveholder ; certainly they 
have no more right to exclude one than the other. Suppose these early 
inhabitants should undertake to exclude all who were not slaveholders, 
what would you do ? You would, if you thought proper, enter the ter- 
ritory without regard to such impotent pretence. If you were forcibly 
ejected, you would call it revolution. But it would be no more revolution 
thus to expel you, than if the same power were to expel me. Our rights 
being equal, our remedies would be the same. All are equals ; all have 
equal rights, whether citizens of the slave or free states ; and whenever 
the Constitution fails to aiford equal protection to all, the powers 
of the Government are at an end — the days of the republic are num- 
bered. What I contend for are constitutional rights. I do not say that 
these rights may not be wrested from me by force, or that a mal-admi- 
nistration may not render them nugatory. But I do not anticipate such- 
a state of things ; I rely upon the Constitution to protect me ; and shall 
not admit a doubt that it will prove efficient for that purpose. I have 
heard the question asked. Suppose the legislative council of a territory 
refuses to pass laws to protect slave property, what shall we do in that 
case ? Suppose this council refuses to pass laws to protect the lives, 
characters, and personal liberty of the citizens, what would you do ? 
Suppose the first settlers in a territory take possession of its government, 
and refuse to pass laws to give protection to the persons and property 
of any others than themselves, what would you do ? You tell me that 
such suppositions are not admissible, and so I think. It is inadmissible 
to suppose that legislators in any part of the world neglect the important 
office of giving protection to the lives and property of the citizens. 
Fidelity to the oaths they take would exact this, though justice slum- 



GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORIES. 139 

bered in their breasts. All these suppositions are based on the hypo- 
thesis that discriminations may rightfully be made against slaveowners 
and slave property, which I am far, very far, from admitting. No such 
discrimination can be made. The same oath, the same conscience, that 
binds the law-maker to give protection to you and your property, binds 
him in an equal degree to give protection to me and mine. And I no 
more fear than you, that this oath or this conscience will be violated. 
Our rights are precisely equal. I admit that by force, fraud, and per- 
jury, I may lose my rights, and by the same means you may lose yours. 

I shall not admit, as some southern men have done, a right in the 
people of the territory to exclude me and my constituents from a full 
participation in the use and occupancy of these territories. There is 
something so monstrous in such a proposition that the mind recoils in- 
stantly on beholding it. Suppose you receive (as you probably will 
within the next week) the Mexican treaty ratified, and that you proceed, 
before the close of this session of Congress, to organize a territorial 
government in New Mexico and California ; will the present inhabitants 
of these territories have the right to exclude whom they please ? Do 
gentlemen mean seriously to contend, that after fighting out this war, 
at the expense of more than fifty millions of dollars, and the sacrifice 
of more than five thousand precious lives, we are not now to settle in 
the territories acquired by this vast expense and sacrifice, until the 
Mexicans inhabitants shall be willing to grant us leave ? Do they mean 
to assert that the victorious and proud-hearted American is to go, cap 
in hand, to the miserable, cringing Mexican peon, and ask his permission 
to settle on the soil won by the valor of our troops at Buena Vista, or 
before the walls of Mexico ? Truly, sir, there is something new in the 
law of nations — this doctrine that the conqueror may only use his con- 
quests as the whims and caprices of the conquered may choose to dictate. 
I should like to hear gentlemen who hold these doctrines advancing them 
to our southern soldiers. I should be glad to know what response a 
member of the 1st Mississippi rifles, or the South Carolina Palmetto 
regiment, would make to a member of Congress who would tell him that 
he could not take his property to California until the Indians and Mexi- 
cans in that country gave him special leave to do so. Having conquered 
the country, they doubtless concluded, as I have done, that if the Mexi- 
cans remained, they would do so by the special grace of the conqueror. 

The conclusion, Mr. Chairman, to which my own mind has arrived on 
the several points involved, are briefly these : That every citizen of the 
United States may go to the territories, and take with him his property 
— be it slaves, or any other description of property. That neither the 
United States Congress nor Territorial Legislature has any power or 
authority to exclude him ; and that the power of legislation, by whom- 
soever exercised, in the territories, whether by Congress or the Terri- 
torial Legislature, must be exerted for the equal benefit of all — for 
the southern slaveholder no less than for the northern dealer in dry 
goods. 

One other view of the subject, and I am done. 

Not only, sir, is the law, but the justice and morality of this terri- 
torial question with the South. Shall the southern soldier, who shed his 
blood in the acquisition of territory, be told he has no right to the fruits 
of his own victory ; that his toils have been bootless to himself and his 



140 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

posterity ; that the citizens of Massachusetts, who looked on with cold 
indifference, sympathized with our enemies, and received the intelligence 
of our triumphs with secret pain, have acquired every right — rights pur- 
chased with blood ; and that he wlio shed that blood, and yielded up his 
life on the battle-field, got nothing for himself, and left no inheritance 
to his children. Go, sir, to the other end of this capitol, and witness a 
meeting of the Senate; you may see a modest, retiring gentleman, a 
young man, a young senator, but an old soldier, as he enters that cham- 
ber, leaning on his staff. He is lame ; his blood stained the battle-field 
of Buena Vista : shall the gallant and intrepid Davis be told that he has no 
right to settle in New Mexico or California with his property ; that this is 
a right reserved to the senator from Ohio (Mr. Corwin), who would have 
greeted him on this the field of his glory, with " bloody hands, and wel- 
comed him to a hospitable grave?" A few days since, you may have 
seen, in this city, another soldier of this war, a major-general in your 
army — a gentleman, a scholar, a statesman, and a slaveholder. On the 
breaking out of this war, he gave himself wholly to his country — perilled 
his life — severed the ties that bound him to his family and friends — 
sacrificed the enjoyments of domestic quiet — abandoned a home blessed 
with all the comforts that affection could bestow or wealth could purchase, 
to encounter the hardships of a military camp in a distant and inhospi- 
table country; and must he be told to stand back and witness the fruits 
of his toil-lavished upon the sympathising friends of Mexico ? Must 
Major-General Quitman be thrust aside, that place may be given to 
General Appleton Howe ? Must the general who fought the battle yield 
the fruits of his victory to one who remained at home, sympathizing with 
his country's enemies, and refusing the last solemn tribute of respect to 
a son of Massachusetts — a son who yielded up his life in defence of his 
country's honor, nobly defending his country's flag? 

General Taylor, whom you would make President even against his 
will, is himself a slaveholder, an extensive cotton planter, in my own 
district. Suppose he should desire to remove his slaves to New Mexico 
or California: is he to be told, that after all his toils, his dangers and 
privations — after having "won an empire" — he shall be an outcast, 
without the poor privilege of occupying the very soil which his skill and 
valor won for his country ? But why specify individual instances, when 
there is not a battle-field, from Palo Alto to Agua Nueva, nor one, sir, 
from the castle of San Juan to the inner walls of the city of Mexico, 
that is not crimsoned with southern blood ; not a field from which the 
disembodied spirits of southern patriots have not ascended, where their 
bones do not now lie bleaching ? Shall the fathers, brothers, sons 
of these men, be expelled from the country purchased with their lives, 
and baptized in their blood, and see it given to a miscreant who " played 
such fantastic tricks before high heaven as made the angels weep" — a 
wretch who, to gratify the malignity of a vicious heart, libelled his spe- 
cies, insulted the ashes of a fallen patriot, and wrote infamy on his own 
brazen front ? The hour that witnesses this black injustice will date an 
era in the decline of this great republic. The vote by which this foul 
wrong is consummated will unhinge the Constitution, and leave our 
country at the mercy of the winds and waves of popular fury. I am not 
authorized to speak for the entire South ; but for my own gallant little 
Btate, I can and will speak. She never will submit to a wrong like thisj 



SLAVERY AND THE POLITICAL POWER OF THE SOUTH. 141 

no, sir ; never, never, never ! There she stands, on the broad platform 
of the Constitution; weak in numerical force, strong in the consciousness 
of her own just cause, fresh from the field of her glory, still dripping 
with the blood of her best sons; and there she will stand, until the 
shock that drives her from that position shall crumble the Constitution 
beneath her feet. She hates injustice, and loves the Constitution; she 
cherishes the memory of her fallen sons with all the fondness of paternal 
affection, and she will see justice done their memory ; she will demand 
justice, according to the Constitution, for their families and friends. 
No power on earth can deprive them of this but the power of despotism. 
When that is exerted, the tocsin will sound ; the spirit of AVashington 
will depart ; the Constitution will pass away as the baseless fabric of a 
vision ; anarchy will reign triumphant. May God, in His mercy, pre- 
serve us from such a calamity ! 



SLAVERY NO INCREASE OF THE POLITICAL 
POWER OF THE SOUTH. 

On the 1st of August, 1848, Mr. Robert C. Schexk, of Ohio, in the course of a speech 
on the Oregon bill, in the House of Representatives, said : 

" But, sir, regarding this as a political question purely, or one, if you will, of poli- 
tical power, there is a thing connected with slavery to Avhich Ave cannot and will 
not be blind. It is the advantage in federal representation which it gives. This 
much Ave do know in the free states, if we know nothing else : that a man at the 
South, with his hundred slaves, counts sixty-one in the weight of influence and 
power upon this floor, while the man at the North, with his hundred farms, counts 
but one. Sir, we umnt no more of that; and, with the help of God, and our own 
firm purpose, we will have no more of it. Therefore, above all, it is that we want 
no more slave territory. That is a sufficient and conclusiA'e reason, if there were 
no other ; and it might as well be distinctly understood first as last. 

********* 

" Sir, shall I illustrate to show that we understand this matter ? There is the district 
of the honorable gentleman from South Carolina, who would amend so as to extend 
slavery into Oregon. I have not consulted the census to see how it may be in his 
particular case, but he probably represents some five or six, or eight thousand 
voters. Now, there are about eighteen thousand voters in my district — eighteen 
thousand free white male adult citizens. These eighteen thousand freemen have 
one voice and one vote — I would it were an abler one — on this floor. The five 
thousand or eight thousand in South Carolina have the same. On every bill or 
resolution, or other subject of legislation here, the eighteen thousand in Ohio can 
say aye or no — once and no more — while one-third or one-half that number in 
South Carolina have also their aye or no. We do not complain of this. I wish it 
were not so. But so it was arranged, so agreed that it should be, by our fathers 
when they framed the Constitution ; and we will hold by that agreement in all 
good faith, and submit to it as part of the price paid for this Union. But let there 
be no more slave territory to make more slave states, to give us more of this slave 
representation and inequality of weight in the councils of the nation." 

Governor Brown promptly responded, exposing the fallacy of slavery 



142 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

increasing the representative power of the South. Having offered an 
amendment pro formd, he proceeded to say: — The South had contended 
for the constitutional right of her citizens to emigrate to the territories 
with their property, and the error into which Northern gentlemen were 
continually falling, was in attempting to discriminate between slave and 
other property. The Constitution made no such discrimination, and it 
was not in the power of Congress to do so. Mr. B. said his principal object 
in rising at this time was to correct an error very common of Northern 
politicians, and into which the remarkably astute gentleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Schenk] had just fallen. That gentleman had stated, with great 
earnestness and apparent candor, that the slave states had an undue or 
disproportionate political influence in this House, in consequence of the 
slave population within their limits. Exactly the converse of this pro- 
position was true. The slave states lose political influence, in conse- 
quence of the slaves within their limits. In the gentleman's state, as 
in all the free states, the entire population, white and black, were enu- 
merated, and all were taken into the account in fixing the ratio of repre- 
sentation. A free negro in Ohio counted as much as a white man, in 
the general enumeration of her population, and so he did in Mississippi, 
and in every other state: but how was it with slaves? Under the Con- 
stitution, two-fifths of the whole number were excluded, the rule being 
to compute the whole number of free persons, including those bound to 
service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, and then 
add three-fifths of all other persons, in other words, slaves. Now, what 
was the practical operation of this rule ? Certainly not to increase our 
power and influence here. In his (M. B.'s) state, a little over one-half 
of the whole population were slaves. Of these, two-fifths are excluded 
in fixing the ratio of representation. Two-tenths of the entire popula- 
tion are left out of the enumeration, and our political influence diminished 
by that amount ; and yet the gentleman stands up here and misleads the 
public mind, by asserting that slavery increases the political power of 
the South. 

Mr. Schenk. Does the gentleman represent the slaves in his district ? 

Mr. Brown. I represent three-fifths of them ; the other two-fifths 
have no representative. 

Mr. Schenk. Do the slaves vote ? 

Mr. Brown. Certainly not : nor do the women and children. Yet 
women and children are included in the enumeration, and are repre- 
sented. The free negroes in the gentleman's district do not vote, yet 
they are all counted in fixing the ratio of representation. The gentle- 
man represents all the negroes in his district, though they do not vote. 
I only represent three-fifths of the negro slaves in my district, and the 
political power of the district to the extent of the remaining two-fifths is 
diminished. 

Mr. Schenk. Do you not represent them as property ? 

Mr. Brown. I cannot allow the gentleman to change the issue. 
Docs he not regard them as people — as population ? Set them free, and 
you do not increase thereby their civil rights, but you would give them 
their full weight in representation. At present they have a mixed cha- 
racter : they are property, it is true ; but then, they are persons. By 
the laws of the land, they may commit crimes, and crimes may be com- 
mitted against them. It is murder, unlawfully and wickedly to kill a 



ANTONIO PACHECO. 143 

slave ; and if a slave maliciously slay a white man, or a fellow-slave, he 
is guilty of murder. In this and in many other respects, slaves are 
persons. The gentleman regards them as persons in all respects ; and 
seeing two-fifths of these persons excluded from representation on this 
floor, he yet complains that our influence is increased in consequence of 
our slave population. Suppose there to be five millions of slaves in the 
United States (we all know there are not so many by great odds), three 
millions enter into the computation, and are represented on this floor. 
Set them all free, and the whole five millions would come in, and our 
influence and power be thereby increased by the additional two millions. 
But without special legislation for that purpose, free men of color would 
not have the right to vote any more than slaves have that right. The 
civil and political rights of the negro are not increased by the mere act 
of setting him free. He may rise by mere possibility in the scale of 
social importance ; but the chances are, that in the course of three or 
four generations, he will relapse into his original position, and become 
little else than a degraded animal. 



. ANTONIO PACHECO. 

In the House of Representatives, December 29, 1848, on the bill making provision 
for paying the heirs of Antonio Pacheco, for a negro slave, employed by the United 
States Army in Florida as a guide, who escaped to the Indians and was removed 
with them by the Government to the lands reserved for the Indians in the AVest — 
Mr. Brown said : — 

The views presented by the gentleman who had just taken his seat 
were of a character so extraordinary as to require an immediate 
response. They Avere the views frequently presented by northern men, 
and by which the people of the North had continually been led into 
error upon the subject of slavery. The gentleman had said that he did 
not desire to inflict any torture upon the feelings of southern men. He 
begged the gentleman to accept his acknowledgments ; but he must 
say, that no one had been seriously injured, or was likely to be, by 
what had fallen from the gentleman. The people of the South knew 
their rights, and knowing, dared maintain them both here and elsewhere, 
and maintain them as men. 

The gentleman had said there was nothing in the Constitution of the 
United States which made slaves property, and therefore that he was 
not disposed to pay for them when taken for public use. Slaves were 
property under the Constitution whenever it subserved the purposes of 
the Government to consider them as such. If they wanted to levy 
taxes upon them, then they were property. This Congress might levy 
taxes upon slaves as property ; they might collect them, and put the 
avails into the cofl'ers of the Union, to defray the expenses of the 
Government. For that purpose slaves were property. If it Avas desired 
to satisfy an execution in favor of the Government against some 



144 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

southern defaulter — some custom-house officer, some postmaster, or other 
defaulting agent of the Government — slaves were property enough for 
that purpose. Whenever it was for the advantage of the Government, 
their northern friends were ready enough to consider them as property ; 
but when the Government was asked to give fair compensation for such 
property which had been appropriated to public use, their northern 
friends found that there was nothing in the Constitution to justify their 
being regarded as property. The Supreme Court of the United States, 
sitting at this hour in this capitol, had time and again adjudicated ques- 
tions involving the right of property in slaves ; and never had that 
court intimated that there was as much as a doubt as to the existence 
of that right. In the case of Groves vs. Slaughter, among other things, 
that court had clearly and distinctly recognised the right of property in 
slaves. 

But the gentleman from New Hampshire found that there was no- 
thing in the Constitution recognising the right of property in slaves, and 
therefore he was not going to give it by his vote. He (Mr. B.) would 
like to know of the gentleman if there was anything in the Constitution 
' which pointed out a horse, or any other animal or thing, as property ? 
Where was the clause of the Constitution which declared the right of 
property in a house, in a wooden clock, or any other product of the 
great state of New Hampshire, or the right of property in corn, in 
breadstuflfs, or in any article of merchandise ? The Constitution of the 
United States was profoundly silent on all these points, as it was upon 
the question of the right of property in slaves. 

So far as the action of this Congress was concerned, the question had 
time and again been settled, that there was such a thing as the right of 
property in slaves. But it belonged to gentlemen of the school of 
politics to which the gentleman from New Hampshire belonged, within 
the last three or four je&rs to discover that there was no such thing in 
existence. Why, he would like to know of the gentleman when and 
where it was that he had made the marvellous discovery, that there could 
be no right of property in anything unless that thing was specified in 
the Constitution of the United States. 

The Supreme Court, in, he supposed, a thousand cases involving the 
■ principle that there was property in slaves, had affirmed, directly or in- 
directly, that right ; Congress also, in repeated instances, had affirmed 
it. Gentlemen ought to admit some principle as settled. When we 
had precedent after precedent, both in our judicial decisions and in the 
action of Congress, all pointing one way, or (to use more approved 
language) if the question had been " settled by the various departments 
of the Government," the principle must be regarded as established ; and 
(we were told) we were to expect no veto from the President elect, and 
he should hope that no objections to it would come from the President's 
friends. 

He repeated, he had not risen for the purpose of discussing the point 
whether this particular claim was valid, but to correct the improper, the 
erroneous doctrine which had been promulgated by the gentleman from 
New Hampshire — a doctrine which, in his judgment, had done more to 
' poison the minds of the northern people, to lead them into error, and 
shake the foundations of society, than all other false doctrines com- 
bined. 



SLAVE TRADE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 145 



SLAVE TRADE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 

la the House of Kepresentatlves, January 31, 1849, on the relations of Congress to 
the District of Columbia, in connection with a bill to prohibit the introduction of 
slaves into the District of Columbia as merchandise, 

Mr. Brown said, he did not design, upon taking the floor at the pre- 
sent time, to enter into a discussion of the various questions which had 
engaged the attention of the House this morning ; but as a member of ( 
the committee on the District of Columbia, he desired to say a word 
with reference to his own position with regard to the introduction of 
this bin. The bill was almost a literal transcript of what was the law 
of the state of Mississippi from the year 1837 down to a period within ' 
some three or four years past, with one material alteration, namely, a 
prohibition against any citizen going beyond the boundaries of the Dis- 
trict and buying a slave for his own use within the District. The law 
of the state of Mississippi, to which he referred, was founded upon a 
provision of the constitution of that state which grew out of apprehen- 
sions (whether well founded or not) of servile insurrections in the minds 
of the framers of that constitution. The provision was at all events in- 
corporated into the constitution, and the act in pursuance thereof, to 
which he had referred, was drawn by his own hand as a member of the 
Mississippi legislature. In his capacity as a member of the committee 
on the District of Columbia, he had pointed to that law as containing 
suitable provisions to be incorporated into the bill which they were to 
report. The law was acceptable to the committee ; and, with the mate- 
rial alteration to which he had referred, it was copied and reported to 
the House. 

A VOICE. The gentleman is mistaken about the restriction. 

Mr. Brown (continuing) said he was not mistaken. He had said 
that, by the restriction to which he objected, citizens of the District 
were not to go beyond the boundaries of the District, and purchase 
slaves for their own use within the District. There was, indeed, a pro- 
vision that they might, by inheritance, marriage, or bequest, obtain a 
title to slaves without the District, and so bring them in ; but there was . 
no other provision of the bill by which a citizen of the District could 
acquire title to slaves in any of the states. He had opposed and ob- 
jected to this restriction, in the committee, upon the ground that it was 
never petitioned for by the people. The immediate occasion and basis 
of the bill was the petition of the mayor and council of the city of 
Washington. And if he could be induced to vote for a bill of this kind 
at all, it Avould be on account of such petition. He did not know that, 
under any circumstances, it could command his vote ; certainly it never 
could with this restriction. 

A word in regard to his own position. He had always believed that, 
in his representative character upon that floor, he was called upon to 
represent the expressed will and wishes of the people of the District of ^ 
Columbia, having, at the same time, due regard to the rights of the 



146 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

people of the several states, and to the restrictions of the Constitution 
of the United States. If the people of the Distriet of Columbia peti- 
tioned for any object which might be granted without violation of the 
Constitution, or infringement of the rights of other citizens of the United 
States, he was bound to support their petition ; and it ought to be 
granted. He felt that he should no more claim for himself the right to 
represent the people of the District of Columbia, in accordance with the 
wishes of the people of the fourth congressional district of Mississippi, 
than that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Giddings] should claim to rep- 
resent them in accordance with the wishes of his constituents. He was 
willing to meet gentlemen here on common ground, and claim no more 
for his particular section than he was willing to accord to every other 
section of the country. The District of Columbia was no gladiatorial 
region, where opposing parties were to meet in conflict. This was neu- 
tral ground, where the wishes of the people should be fairly represented, 
having respect always to the rights of others and to the Constitution. 
He did not believe that the strong party in Congress had any right to 
pass any law for the District, without respect to the wishes of the people 
of the District, and without reference to the Constitution and rights of 
the people outside of the District ; but that in all this branch of their 
public charge, they should have an eye strictly to the Constitution, and 
to the rights of the whole people. Such was his policy, and would con- 
tinue to be so long as he remained a representative on that floor. He 
should never look to the state of Mississippi for the sole rule of his con- 
duct in this department of his duty. For, if gentlemen were to look to 
the wishes of their constituents in these cases, it would not be long be- 
fore we should have laws for the District of Columbia framed in obedi- 
ence to the wishes of the people of New England, or the great West, 
and having no regard to the wishes of the people here. He wanted no 
such thing. 

In acting upon a petition from the people of this District, his first 
object was to inquire how far he might go, and still remain within the 
limits of the Constitution ? and then how far he might go without in- 
fringing upon the deed of cession by which the District was acquired 
from the states of Maryland and Virginia ? These limits being ascer- 
tained, he should be prepared to go for any law desired by the people 
of the District, which did not require these fixed limits to be transcended. 
If gentlemen from New England, New York, and elsewhere, were pre- 
pared to act upon this rule, he was prepared to go with them. He Avas 
glad that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Taylor] had introduced the 
authority of a late venerable representative from Massachusetts [Mr. 
John Quincy Adams], in support of the principle, that the people of the 
District of Columbia were not to be represented according to the views 
and Avishes of the people residing elsewhere in the United States. If 
his own views did not happen to accord exactly with those of the people 
here petitioning, it was his duty to conform his views to theirs ; and this 
was manifestly the only right rule upon which these people could be 
represented. He appealed, therefore, to his friends, the southern dele- 
gation, to do what was right upon this question, while he asked only the 
same thing of gentlemen from the North. He thought gentlemen on all 
sides might shape their conduct according to the rule he had laid down, 



SLAVE TRADE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 147 

doing no injustice to the District, and giving no just ground of complaint 
to the states north or south. 

Mr. McLane interposed to ask a question ; and (Mr. B. giving way for 
the purpose) he said he would ask the gentleman whether he went so far 
with his doctrine as to recognise the right on the part of the people of 
the District of Columbia to ask of Congress the enactment of a law 
abolishing slavery in the District ? — whether he did not believe that such 
an act would be unconstitutional ? — in other words, whether the gentle- 
man's rule went further than to admit of petitions for objects vathin the 
federal power to grant, while he would exclude all others, as petitions 
which should neither be demanded on their part nor granted on ours, 
for the reason that they were incompatible with the federal powers of 
Congress ? 

Mr. Brown replied, that he hardly thought the gentleman could have 
misunderstood him. He would say again, that the people of this Dis- 
trict, like every other people, had the right to be represented (if they 
were represented at all) according to their own views and wishes, and 
not according to the views of people residing elsewhere in the United 
States. They had no right to ask, nor had Congress the right to grant, 
laws for their benefit which would outrage the rights of others, whether 
citizens of the state of Virginia, Maryland, or any other state. He 
should always expect every gentleman who desired to protect the rights 
of the people, whether citizens of Maryland, Virginia, or the District 
of Columbia, to vote against the abolition of slavery here ; for such a 
policy would make of the District nothing but a receptacle for all the 
free negroes in the country. He could not go into the question of the 
constitutional power of Congress to abolish slavery here : it was in no 
way involved in the bill. But he would take occasion to say, he had 
never conceded the power ; and if he had, there were abundant reasons 
without the Constitution to determine his vote against such a measure. 

One word with reference to the complaint made as to gentlemen voting 
here contrary to their own convictions of right, because of the fear of 
their constituents. He knew not how it was with the gentleman from 
New York, but when such a charge was made against him, his reply 
was, that he was not afraid to give any vote which his judgment might 
approve. The apprehension of responsibility at home did not swerve 
him. He was sent here to take responsibility, and he would account 
himself unfaithful and unworthy of his trust, if he did not take respon- 
sibility on all proper occasions. Upon all questions involving the rights 
of the South and the southern institution of slavery, he should vote with ' 
the South. And if he had any fears on this subject, they were not for 
himself or his constituents, but rather for the North. If gentlemen de- 
sired it of him, he would now tell them, that he felt the necessity, on 
the part of the South, of standing together upon every question involv- 
ing the right of property in slaves, the slave trade, and abolition in all 
its forms. He knew that they must stand together for defence : there- 
fore, as the South voted, so he should vote, till the pressure from with- 
out should be withdrawn. The South acted together upon the principle 
of self-protection and self-preservation. They stood for protection ' 
against destruction and annihilation. He knew not the motive which 
prompted this outward pressure ; he felt its existence and he knew that the 
South acted purely on the defensive ; they merely warded off the blow 



148 ALBERT G. BROAVN. 

directed against their peace, their safety, their lives. Such were his 
motives for voting with the South. And he now said to all who were 
opposed to him or his country, withdraw your pressure ; cease to agitate 
this question ; let us alone ; do whatsoever you think to be right with- 
out endangering us, and you will find that we, too, are ready to do right. 

Mr. FiCKLiN desired to inquire of the gentleman from Mississippi, 
before he took his seat, whether he had stated that the bill before the 
House was a transcript of a law of the state of Mississippi ? 

Mr. Brown replied that he had so stated the fact. The law, how- 
ever, had been repealed by the legislature of Mississippi some two or 
three years ago. The reason why it had been repealed, he supposed, 
was of no consequence there. 

While upon this subject, he might say, that, although he had voted 
for the motion of the gentleman from Georgia, to lay the bill on the 
table, he did not fully approve of it. He was perfectly willing now, as 
he should be at any time hereafter, to see the motion of the gentleman 
from Ohio [Mr. Edwards] prevail. He was perfectly willing that the 
bill should be printed, examined, and discussed fully. He was not so 
much opposed to the motion of the gentleman from Georgia as he was 
opposed to the motion of the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Wentworth]. 
The disposition thus manifested to force a bill of this character through 
the House upon three minutes' consideration, was most extraordinary. 
As to the question raised by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Burt], he admitted there was force in it. How far Congress had the 
right to legislate upon any question, in any way involving the right of 
property in slaves, even in this District, was worthy of the gravest con- 
sideration. The question presented by the bill is not, whether Congress 
may destroy property in slaves (that would be abolition, and on such a 
proposition no southern man coukl hesitate), but the question is simply, 
whether Congress may do in this District, what almost all the slave 
states have done within their respective limits — prohibit the introduction 
of slaves as merchandise or for sale. And even this was not without its 
difficulties and embarrassments. He was not on that account for shrink- 
ino- from it. The question was before us, and we must consider it. For 
himself he was ready to meet it, to act upon it as upon every other 
respectful application coming from those who had a right to make 
such application. The people of the District had the right to make this 
application. It was our duty to consider it ; and he would go further, 
and say it was our duty to grant it, if we could do so without prejudice 
to the rights of others, and without transcending our constitutional 
powers. Whether in the end we vote for or against the bill, let us refer 
it, print it, and give it proper and respectful consideration. 

Mr. B. trusted he had not been misunderstood ; for it was known, 
that to a southern member, this was a delicate question. He had ex- 
pressed his honest views — views which he desired to carry out in good 
faith. He did very well know, that if the South were let alone — if they 
were not positively ill-treated, the North might be assured they would 
come up and do what was right. They stood together now for their 
■ own preservation, and nothing less than unity in their councils could be 
expected of them in the present crisis. If individual members did not 
always vote exactly according to their views of right upon these ques- 
tions, it was because of this known, and now universally acknowledo-ed. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 149 

necessity of unity and concert among ourselves. When a sleepless and ^ 
dangerous enemy stood at our doors, we felt the necessity of acting 
together. Let that enemy withdraAV — let us out into the open sunshine, 
where we could look upon the same sun that you look upon — where 
the air, the land, the water, everything could be seen in common and 
enjoyed in common — and we should be ready to meet you as brethren, 
and legislate with you as brethren. But so long as you keep up this ^ 
pressure, these endless, ceaseless, ruthless assaults upon us, we must 
stand together for defence. In this position we must regard you as our 
enemies, and we are yours. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 

In the House of Representatives, February 10, 1849, — On the proposition of Mr. 
Preston, of Virginia, to admit New Mexico and California as States; and in reply 
to Mr. Hunt on the general policy of the Administration; Mr. Brown said: 

Mr. Chairman : It is not my purpose to follow the line of discussion 
marked out by the gentleman who has just taken his seat. My chief 
object in taking the floor is to reply to remarks made some time since 
by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Hunt], in reference to the late 
presidential election and the general policy of the existing Administra- 
tion. The question prominently before the committee is certainly one 
of most absorbing interest ; but my reflections so far have brought my 
mind to no satisfactory conclusion in regard to it. I am not fully pre- 
pared to say in what manner I shall even dispose of my own vote. 
Since, however, the proposition to accord state governments to New 
Mexico and California has been presented under such imposing forms ; 
since the eloquent gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Preston] has urged it 
with so much of zeal and ability ; since my friend from Alabama [Mr. 
Hilliard] has entered the list of its advocates, and urged its favorable 
consideration with more than his accustomed intellectual power ; since 
the frequent discussion in the other end of the capitol has attracted so 
large an amount of public attention ; and above all, since it is almost 
certain that we shall be called upon, before the close of the present 
session, to vote upon some one, and perhaps all, of the several proposi- 
tions submitted, and to be submitted, I will avail myself of the oppor- 
tunity now presented to assume that position before the country which 
I desire to occupy. 

Whether I can finally bring myself to vote for any proposition to admit 
these territories as states, I cannot now undertake to say. None of those 
submitted thus far meet my views in their details. The details, however, 
are matters of secondary importance. The great question to be deter- 
mined is, " Shall we admit these territories as states at this session of 
Congress?" Upon this question,, for the sake of harmony and the 
peace of the Union I am prepared to make very great and important 
sacrifices. To attain this end I am ready to give up everything but 
principle and honor ; but, before I move from my present position, I 



150 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

■want to know -whether our opponents are ready to meet us in a corres- 
ponding spirit. Are they ready to make corresponding sacrifices for the 
sake of peace, harmony, and brotherly union ? I am prepared to go to 
that point where conflicting interests and opinions may meet, and adjust 
this dangerous issue upon terms honorable to both sides, and without any 
undue sacrifice by either party. That such a point exists, no one 
seriously questions. Shall we meet there, is the only point worth con- 
sidering. 

We of the South voted at the last session of Congress for more than 
one proposition which our judgments did not wholly approve. We did 
so in a spirit of concession and compromise. But in what spirit were 
we met? In a spirit of stern and obstinate resistance. Every tender 
of the olive branch was rudely, almost indignantly rejected. All our 
propositions were voted down as they were successively presented, by 
that party who claimed a right to undivided dominion over these terri- 
tories. I never have, and never will assent to the justice of this claim; 
and hereafter I will vote to maintain the rights of the South in their 
broadest latitude, unless I shall plainly see, that by an honorable and 
manly surrender of a portion of these rights, peace may be secured, 
and the Union rescued from its present perilous condition. I love the 
Union, but the love I bear it is for its blessings, and not its curses. Let 
it fulfil the high purpose of its creation, and the people will preserve it 
at any and every sacrifice of blood or treasure, and nowhere will these 
sacrifices be more freely made than in the South. But divert it from 
this purpose, resolve it into a mighty engine of oppression, to be wielded 
by the strong and powerful for the subjugation of the weak and power- 
less, and you convert our love into hatred ; and these sacrificf>s which 
we now freely ofi"er for its preservation, we will then reserve for its 
destruction. The union of these states rests on a foundation solid and 
sacred, the affections of the people of all the states. Be careful how 
you tamper with that foundation, lest you destroy it, and thus destroy 
the Union itself. Let the Union dispense equal and exact justice to all, 
special favors to none, and not one murmur of complaint will ever come 
up here from the patriotic sons of the " Sunny South." We despise 
injustice of every kind. In the emphatic words of a distinguished 
chieftain, " We ask no favors, and shrink from no responsibility." 

It has been charged that my political associates intend to postpone 
the settlement of this question, to the end that it may be to General 
Taylor a stream of consuming fire, which it may be impossible to circum- 
vent, and which he cannot cross in safety. For myself, the unworthy 
imputation is emphatically disclaimed. I shall vote upon this, as upon 
all other questions, precisely as I would have done before the late pre- 
sidential election — just as I should have done had General Cass been 
the successful candidate, or as though no presidential election had inter- 
vened. This, to my mind, is a question above all party considerations. 
It deeply involves the harmony and stability of the Union, and I should 
despise myself if I were capable of shaping my conduct, on such a 
question, with a view to partisan results. Upon such issues I shall vote 
without reference to party ties, and without stopping to inquire whether 
I am advancing or retarding the political fortunes of the President elect. 
And I may lay it down as a general rule, that whilst I will not travel 
out of my way to remove obstacles from the path of General Taylor — 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 151 

if, indeed, there be any sucli in his way — I shall not regard it as copa- 
patible with my duty as a citizen, or dignity as a representative, to in- 
terpose such obstacles where none now exist. 

Before dismissing the subject, allow me, Mr. Chairman, to congrat- 
ulate the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Preston], and, through him, 
his political associates here and elsewhere, that he and they are at last 
so near on the " Cass platform." If the gentleman will movea very 
little to the right, he will find himself in exact juxtaposition with the 
late Democratic candidate for the presidency, on this question ; that is, 
asserting that the people of the territories, under the general limitations 
and restrictions of the Federal Constitution, may rightfully settle the 
slavery question for themselves. The gentleman, at the last session of 
Congress, and throughout the canvass for President, was understood to 
oppose this doctrine. 

Mr. Preston interposed. He had been misunderstood by the gentle- 
man from Mississippi. Last year, and always and everywhere, he had 
advocated the doctrine and made the distinction which he had attempted 
to make day before yesterday. The distinction he drew was, between 
the territorial rights of a people, contemplated as the people of a terri- 
tory, and the sovereign rights of a people after they have been created 
a state government. 

Mr. Brown. I so understood the gentleman, and have given him 
due credit for his ingenuity. But the distinction seems to me, when ap- 
plied to the case in hand, a thing rather of form than substance. Here 
is a conquered people, possessing as yet no political rights under our 
laws and Constitution, because not yet admitted to the rights of citizen- 
ship ; and what is worse, possessing no practical knowledge of the 
workings of our system of government, and knowing nothing of our in- 
stitutions. The substantial question is, shall such a people give laws to 
our territories, and shape and mould their institutions for the present, 
and possibly for all after time ? It is a matter of form whether they 
shall proceed to do this at once, under the general limitations and re- 
strictions of the Constitution, or whether you shall hoist them into the 
Union as a State, with the avowed purpose, object, and aim, of giving 
them the power to do the same thing. Is there a member of this 
House who would ever have taken upon himself to lead into the Union 
a state of such huge dimensions as that proposed by my friend from 
Virginia — embracing, as it does, all of New Mexico and California — 
but that it seemed to present a feasible means of getting clear of this 
most dangerous and perplexing question ? Hitherto it has been usual 
to introduce states with fixed metes and bounds — to know something of 
the people who were to govern them — to know at least that they were 
or intended to become citizens of the United States — to have a reason- 
able assurance that they understood something of our laws and appreci- 
ated our institutions. But here is a proposition to admit a state, ex- 
tending from near the thirty-second to the forty-second degree of north 
latitude — almost six hundred miles on an air line, bounded on the one 
side by the Pacific Ocean, and having no fixed limits on the other. And 
this vast country, sparsely settled, with a foreign population knowing 
nothing of our laws, distrusting from education, the soundness of our 
political theories, and disliking our people from habit, is to be hoisted, 
in all its huge proportions and with this strange population, into our 



152 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Union upon terms of equality with the original states — and for what 
end ? Disguise it as you will, it is that these people may have the 
power to exclude slavery from the territories now and for ever. Have 
they gone through any territorial probation ? Is there any evidence 
that these people, strangers as they are, desire admission into the Union, 
or that they will now consent to come in, if you invite them ? or must 
we bring them in nolens volens ? The gentleman's bill gives to every 
white male inhabitant over the age of twenty-one years the right to 
vote, whether Spaniard, Mexican, Swede, Turk, or what not. So 
he be but a white male inhabitant of the territory, and twenty-one 
years old, he is to vote, it matters not what may have drawn him there, 
or what his future intentions may be. If he be but an inhabitant, and 
white, and twenty-one years old, he is to vote in the formation of a con- 
stitution, by which your rights and mine, Mr. Chairman, and those of 
our constituents, are to be controlled through all after time. And this 
is the proposition of the gentleman who found such mighty fault with 
General Cass for saying the people of the territories, under the restric- 
tions and limitations of the Federal Constitution, could do this same 
thing. I submit to my honorable friend, whether it would not be re- 
spectful, to say the least of it, towards his constituents and mine, to 
require these people, before they pass final judgment upon our rights, to 
make an intimation in some form that they intend to become citizens as 
well as inhabitants of the United States. 

But, says the gentleman, there are some one hundred thousand to two 
hundred thousand American emigrants in that country. It must be a 
lively imagination that could multipy the few thousand gold hunters who 
have gone to California to such vast numbers. There may be some ten 
to twenty thousand Americans there — certainly not more than thirty 
thousand — mere adventurers, who will stay in the country if they find 
it profitable to dig or pick up gold. The emigrants whose rights are to 
be afi"ected by this proceeding — the cotton, sugar, and tobacco-grower 
— have not yet started on their journey, and yet you are proposing to 
force the territory into the Union as a state, settle its institutions, and 
for ever exclude this better class of emigrants. 

These are some of my reflections, Mr. Chairman, hastily thrown out 
in a discussion which I did not intend, at this time, to participate in. I 
do not say that I shall vote against the proposition of the gentleman 
from Virginia. It may be that I shall vote for it. I cannot part with 
the subject at this moment, however, without saying to my honorable 
friend, if it was wrong in General Cass to say the people of the terri- 
tories, under the general limitations and restrictions of the Federal Con- 
stitution, might exclude slavery, it must be equally wrong in him to give 
these same people a factitious political character, to the end that they 
may thereby accomplish the same thing. The people, in the judgment 
of the gentleman, had not this power last summer ; and what are they 
now that they were not then ? They are the same people, with the 
same feelings, passions, and prejudices ; with the same political powers 
— no more nor less, I may appeal to my honorable friend if it was 
quite just in him to hunt down General Cass for his opinions, and then, 
in effect, to put forth the same opinions himself. 

But I must leave this subject, to pay my respects to a speech made by 
an honorable member from New York [Mr. Hunt] some time since. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 153 

That gentleman, in the outset of his remarks, declared with emphasis, 
that all the measures of the existing Administration had been trium- 
phantly overthrown, and the President and his party friends signally 
rebuked at the late presidential election. So strong was this impression 
on the mind of the gentleman, that he took occasion to mention it two 
or three times in the course of his speech. Whether it was in truth 
altogether a strong impression on the gentleman's own mind, or whether 
it was that he thought so novel an historical fact needed repetition to 
imprint it on the mind of others, I do not know ; but certain it is, the 
declaration was several times repeated, and each time with additional 
emphasis. It is my purpose, among other things, to investigate the 
truth of this declaration. 

The gentleman says it is fortunate for the truth of history and the 
correct understanding of political issues, that deposed ministers and dis- 
missed secretaries are not the most accredited historians of their own 
lives, times, and acts ; and I take leave to add, that it is equally fortu- 
nate for the truth of history and the vindication of men and measures, 
that partisan leaders and political tricksters are not always the most ac- 
credited historians of their own lives, times, and tricks. Were the gen- 
tleman from New York to write a history of the late presidential 
canvass, he would induce the world to think that the election had turned 
upon such issues as the bank, the tariff, the independent treasury, and 
other questions which had hitherto divided the two great political 
parties. The gentleman has a way of proving his declaration that all 
these things were in issue, which is at once novel and unique. He saya 
the Baltimore Convention tendered these issues. True, sir, most true. 
The Baltimore Convention did tender these issues ; but did the Phila- 
delphia Convention accept them? It requires two parties to make up 
an issue. The Democratic party, with an instinctive love of truth and 
justice peculiar to themselves, did tender all these issues ; but will the 
gentleman pretend that the Whig party accepted them, or went to the 
country upon them ? If so, when, where, and by whom was it done ? 
Certainly not in Philadelphia. Certainly not here. Certainly it has 
not transpired that any one duly authorized to speak for the Whig party 
did, at any time or place anterior to the late presidential election, 
accept the issues tendered. On the contrary, we were everywhere told 
that the old issues were buried, and that we were before the country on 
otiier new and more important issues. And have these new and important 
issues so soon been forgotten ? Can it be, that in six short weeks after the 
election is over, the distinguished gentleman does not even dare allude to 
them in a speech bearing evident marks of preparation ? Must the defunct 
issues be so soon summoned from their sepulchres, and the new ones be sent 
to take their places ? When the gentleman comes to write the history 
of his own life and times, he may perhaps enlighten the world as to the 
origin of that overruling political necessity which has induced this sud- 
den abandonment of new issues — this longing after old ones. Summon » 
the old issues, if you like. Call them from their tombs of martyrdom. 
But let me tell you, the new ones "will not down at your bidding." 

Mr. Hunt interposed, but the reporter did not catch his remark. 

Mr. Brown. The gentleman says it was always understood that the 
Whigs were opposed to the independent treasury. But did they, as a 
party, say so in the last contest ? That is the question. Did they give 



154 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the country distinctly to understand that this measure was in issue, and 
that General Taylor's success would be followed by the instant repeal of 
the independent treasury law ? I undertake to say, no such authorita- 
tive declaration was ever made. On the contrary, the people were 
everywhere assured that the old party issues were withdrawn, or were 
permitted to sleep, to the end that the full measure of a nation's grati- 
tude might be meted out to the successful general — the chieftain who 
had led our armies in triumph and glory through " an unnecessary, un- 
constitutional, unholy, wicked, and murderous war." 

But, says the gentleman, the tariff of 1846 was also overthrown in 
this general denunciation of popular fury. Indeed ! And pray, sir, 
who put that measure at issue ? We shall again be told, I suppose, that 
the Whigs were understood to be opposed to the tariff of 1846, and in 
favor of that of 1842. However this may be, Mr. Chairman, as a general 
party rule, it does not hold good in every instance ; for I well recollect 
to have heard the ablest and most eloquent of the Whig orators in my 
part of the Union, declare their entire satisfaction with this measure. 
As a measure of revenue it seemed, they said, thus far, to bave an- 
swered the purposes of its projectors ; and so long as it continued to do 
so, they were satisfied to let it alone. But again, let me remind the 
gentleman that this measure was not in issue by any competent party 
authority. The President elect is not a party man, and is not going to 
lend himself to any party schemes, if we may believe his' own emphatic 
declarations, repeated time and again, throughout the whole of the late 
presidential canvass. How dare the gentleman claim his election as a 
verdict for or against any party measure ? Why, sir, to this day the 
* gentleman cannot himself say what General Tayloris for or against. 

There are other great measures of the Democratic party, such as vin- 
dicating the national honor and exacting a due and proper regard for 
our national rights. By a steady observance of these measures, this 
Administration has settled a dispute with England of near fifty years' 
standing, and has flogged Mexico into a decent respect for our national 
flag. All this, the gentleman says, has passed under general condem- 
nation. 

The President has repeatedly and earnestly recommended the reduc- 
tion of the price of the public lands. The Secretary of the Treasury 
has urged the same great measure with zeal and ability. This, too, has 
been condemned. It will be news to my Democratic constituents who 
have been inveigled, by specious Whig promises adroitly put forth, into 
voting for General Taylor, that they thereby passed their verdict of 
condemnation upon this, to them, the most interesting of all the great 
political questions. 

Not only have the people pronounced against all the measures of the 
Democratic party, but, in the gentleman's judgment, they have pro- 
nounced in favor of all the Whig measures. Let me ask my honorable 
friend, what financial scheme for the collection, safe-keeping, and dis- 
bursement of the public revenue is to take the place of the independent 
treasury ? — or do I offend in asking the question ? Must I assume that 
the "obsolete idea" is to be revived — that we are to have a national 
bank? I pause for a reply. 

Mr. Hunt. The public money may be collected and safely disbursed, 
■without the agency of either a bank or sub-treasury. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 155 

Mr. Brown. How ? 

Mr, Hunt replied, that no difficulty had been found in collecting the 
revenues in the ordinary currency of the country, and making the dis- 
bursement without loss, by exercising the same judgment and discretion 
which governs prudent individuals in their own aflfairs. On the suV)ject 
of a bank, he had only said there was no occasion for the President to v 
revive that discussion at this time in his annual message. 

Mr. Brown. I accept the gentleman's answer. In the remarks to 
which I am replying he took the President seriously to task for discuss- 
ing the bank question in his late annual message. He now says there 
was no necessity to revive that discussion at this time. Why not, pray ? 
Is not a bank one of the measures revived in the late Whig victory ? 
Why this chariness of your old friend ? Must the bank sleep on in its < 
deep, cold grave, whilst all Whigdom is redolent with joy at the resur- 
rection of its kindred measures ? Or are you afraid that the old Jack- 
son men, who aided you in achieving your triumph, will raise the war- 
whoop if you exhibit the carcass of the " old monster ?" I commend 
your prudence in not saying "bank" too soon to the Democratic sup- 
porters of General Taylor. 

But what can the gentleman mean by the Government's collecting, 
safe-keeping, and disbursing its revenue without the agency of banks, in 
the same way that a prudent and discreet individual would do the same 
thing ? Need I tell the gentleman, that whenever the Government col- 
lects and disburses its money like a discreet man of business, the sub- 
treasury is then in full operation ? This is the sub-treasury in all its 
length and breadth. It simply proposes that the Government shall col- 
lect, keep, and disburse our money in the same way that a sensible and 
discreet business man would collect, keep, and disburse his money. 
After all, sir, the sub-treasury may not turn out such a raw-head-and- 
bloody-bones as my honorable friend supposes. I commend it to his at- 
tention as a thing worthy of his confidence, and eminently entitled to 
his support on the grounds just taken by himself. 

A mighty cause of complaint is the " profligacy and corruption" of 
the Administration. These phrases are too often applied to the Presi- 
dent of the United States. Coarse in themselves, worn threadbare by t 
constant vulgar use, they are singularly out of place in the speech of a 
gentleman so remarkable for his courtesy as the gentleman from New 
York. Charges of " profligacy and corruption" are never made by one 
member against another, by a representative against a senator, or by 
one gentleman in private life against another similarly situated. We 
all know to what results such charges, if made in any of these cases, 
would certainly lead. Is it, then, in good taste thus to assail the Presi- 
dent, simply because he is President ? I will not say that the known 
fact, that such charges when made against the President involve no per- 
sonal responsibility, encourages their repetition. But this I will say, 
the very fact of knowing that we may assault a man with impunity, should 
for ever induce us to speak to and of him in language free from insult. 
The President is, in an eminent degree, the custodian of the national 
honor ; and whoever degrades the President, to some extent degrades the 
nation. And for this, if for no other reason, I would wish to see gen- 
tlemen more circumspect in their language, and more forbearing in their 
censure. 



166 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

What does the gentleman mean by the profligacy of the President ? 
If he means to say the President has made a profligate or wasteful use 
of the public money, I take issue Avith him. The public money has been 
used for the purposes for which it was appropriated by Congress. The 
gentleman knows very well that not one dollar can be drawn froin the 
treasury but in pursuance of lawful appropriations ; that the President 
is, in fact, further removed from the public money than the gentleman 
or myself. For though the world were at stake, not one dollar can he 
take from the national treasury until the members of this House first 
vote the appropriation. If there have been " profligate and wasteful ap- 
propriations," to the gentleman and his party belong the responsibility. 
It is well known that on that side of the House appropriations of every 
kind find a majority of their supporters. I do not say that these appropri- 
ations are profligate, least of all do I say they are corrupt. I say the 
President is not, and that the Whig party -is, responsible for the voting 
, of these appropriations. 

Mr. BOYDEN (interposing, and the floor being yielded) said the Presi- 
dent should be called upon to declare in what manner the money had 
been expended which was collected under contributions levied by his 
order in Mexico. 

Mr. Brown. There is no difiiculty on that point. The money was 
expended in subsisting our brave troops in Mexico,^ and to my mind it 
was a wise, patriotic, and just use of it. I am not displeased, Mr. Chair- 
man, that the gentleman from North Carolina has thought proper to 
introduce this topic. It gives me an opportunity to say a word in refer- 
ence to it, which otherwise I may not have had. When the point was 
first presented as to the President's right to collect duties in the Mexican 
ports temporarily in the occupancy of American troops, the learned 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. C. J. Ingersoll] admitted the right 
, to collect, but intimated his doubts as to the power to disburse the money 
thus collected. I thought then, as I do now, that the right was clear 
in both cases. If the American general had found a million of dollars 
in the custom-house in the captured city of Vera Cruz, no one would 
have questioned his right to take possession of it. It Avould not only 
have been his right as the conqueror, but it would have been his duty to 
have seized such treasure. If he could seize money already collected, 
might he not also seize such as was subsequently collected ? Will it be 
seriously insisted that the American general would have discharged his . 
duty to his country if he had permitted the Mexican authorities to go 
on collecting duties at Vera- Cruz, after the city was in his military pos- 
session, and have stood by while the funds thus collected were quietly 
handed over, to be used in arming and subsisting the enemy's forces ? 
Such a proceeding could not and would not have been justified. Should 
he then have closed the ports against our own and the commerce of 
neutrals, would not our merchants and those of friendly nations have had 
just cause of complaint against such a rigid use of military power ? 
What, then, was his manifest duty ? To admit the commerce of _ all 
countries upon terms at least as favorable as those imposed by Mexico, 
and see that the duties were faithfully kept from the hands of the enemy. 
True, he may have done this by allowing the Mexican collector to con- 
tinue in performance of his duties, and establishing a sort of surveillance 
over him, to see that he faithfully accounted for the money collected. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 157 

It was much easier, however, and much more compatible with the rela- 
tive position of the two powers, to dismiss the Mexican and appoint an 
American collector. This was done, and less could not have been done, 
short of allowing collections to go on for the use and benefit of the Mexi- 
can army. 

Mr. BoYDEN again interrupted, to say that the President's contribu- 
tions upon imports in Mexico were not levied upon the Mexicans, but 
upon the commerce of American citizens, when they arrived in those 
conquered ports. What right had the President to levy his contributions 
upon American citizens? 

Mr. Brown. The contributions were levied upon all commerce alike. 
Neither our citizens, nor the citizens and subjects of foreign friendly 
powers, had any just cause of complaint, since the American tariff' of 
duties was less tban Mexico herself had collected. I may not fully com- 
prehend the gentleman. Do I understand him to insist that the Presi- 
dent had no right to order the collection of duties in the Mexican ports 
captured by our arms ? 

Mr. BoYDEN. No, sir; but I do insist that, under the pretence of 
levying contributions upon the enemy, the President has no right to take 
the property of American citizens, and to convert it to the purposes of 
his will, without any authority of law whatever. 

Mr. Brown. The gentleman seems to be interposing a new point. 
I do not understand that the President ever directed the property of 
American citizens to be taken and converted to his own or the purposes 
of any one else ; but I do understand that American merchants, by his 
order, entered the Mexican ports upon terms of equality with those of 
England, France, Spain, and other countries. And if an American 
merchant pays duties in New York for the support of his government, 
can it be a very great hardship if he does the same thing at Vera Cruz ? 
Our merchants would not have gone into Mexican ports unless it was to 
their advantage to do so ; and if they went, it was with the full expecta- 
tion of paying duties to some one. It would, I think, be a most un- 
worthy imputation upon an American merchant to say that he was more 
willing to pay a heavy duty to the Mexican Government than a light 
duty to his OAvn. 

Mr. Boyden. The gentleman has mistaken my position, or he under- 
stands only a part of it. I complain that, the money was improperly 
taken by the President, and used without the authority of law. A tax 
was improperly levied upon the property of American citizens, under the 
name of levying contributions upon the enemy; and it was given out that 
the money collected under this pretence was expended in carrying on 
the war. But how did we know that ? Does not the Constitution pre- 
scribe that all appropriations for carrying on war shall be made by Con- 
gress ? How, then, could the President expend this money ? He not 
only levied his contributions without authority, but he expended the 
money so collected in open violation of the Constitution, and without the 
slightest authority of law. 

Mr. Brown. I recognise the gentleman's right in its broadest lati- 
tude : when he finds he has a bad hold, to let go and take hold again ; 
and if the gentleman shall want again to mend his hold, I will again 
give way. If I now fully comprehend the gentleman, the point to which 
he specially desires attention is, as to the constitutional power of the 



158 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

President to direct tlie use of the money without an appropriation first 
made by Congress. Does the gentleman regard contributions of this 
character as money in the treasury, within the meaning of the Constitu- 
tion ? If so, he and I differ widely on that point. I regard it as pro- 
perty captured of the enemy, to be used, if need be, in conquering that 
enemy, and to be accounted for in no otherwise than as other captured 
property. Suppose General Scott had captured in the city of Vera Cruz 
a thousand barrels of flour and fifty thousand cartridges : could he not 
have used these articles in prosecuting the war without the special leave 
of Congress ? Suppose his soldiers had wanted bread — suppose, in the 
midst of the action, his cartridges had given out : must he say to the 
hungry soldier, You shall not eat. Congress has not consented that you 
should consume this captured bread, and I have no other ? or must he 
cease firing in the midst of the action, because he cannot shoot a cap- 
tured Mexican cartridge until Congress has given its consent that it may 
be thus used ? Gentlemen smile, and well they may, for nothing can 
appear more ridiculous, unless it be the proposition gravely put forth by 
the gentleman from North Carolina, that if General Scott had been 
without bread, without transports, and without munitions of war, he 
could not purchase them with this Mexican money in his hands until 
Congress had first appropriated it. The contribution was levied as a 
means of distressing the enemy; and, in my judgment, the levy was 
right. It was used, when collected, in subsisting our army; and there 
could have been no better disposition made of it. I am satisfied with 
the whole afi"air, and I make no doubt the country is satisfied. 

The gentleman from North Carolina has led me ofi" from the points I 
was discussing. I was about to show, when the gentleman interposed, 
that my friend from New York was wholly mistaken in the assumption 
that the people, at the late presidential election, had condemned the 
independent treasury, the revenue tariff of 1846, and other kindred 
Democratic measures. Let us take the independent treasury by way of 
illustration : the gentleman says it was condemned in the election of 
General Taylor. I pass by the point that General Taylor, so far as the 
world knows, is as much for as against this measure ; and I give the gen- 
tleman the full benefit of his claim, that all the votes polled for the 
General have pronounced against the independent treasury — and then 
how stands the case ? General Cass was known to be in favor of this 
measure. Mr. Van Buren claims to have been its father ; and however 
he may have strangled other of his political offspring, he has ever shown 
an abiding parental affection for this. Now, it so turns out that the two 
friends of the measure have, together, polled a popular majority of one 
hundred and fifty-two thousand votes over General Taylor. And, sir, if 
it be true, as has been asserted by my honorable friend, that this great 
measure was an issue, and that the people voted in reference to it, then 
has it triumphed, and it now stands before the world endorsed by the 
approving voice of a popular majority of more than one hundred and 
fifty thousand free American electors. And what I say of this measure 
is equally true of all the others enumerated by the honorable gen- 
tleman. 

Mr. Hunt inquired if the gentleman intended to claim the vote for 
Van Buren and Adams as part of the Democratic vote ? If he chose 
to figure out a majority in that way, it was not for him to interfere. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 159 

Mr. Brown. I claim them on the gentleman's own assumption that 
the independent treasury, the revenue tariff, and other Democratic mea- 
sures were in issue, and that the late presidential election had been 
conducted in reference to those issues. This being the case, I maintain 
that the friends of these measures have polled the largest popular vote 
by one hundred and fifty thousand, and that the measures are therefore 
triumphant before the people, and have only been defeated in the elec- 
toral college by a division among their friends. 

Just here the gentleman would, I have no doubt, be glad to interpose 
the Free-soil issue, and I might justly deny his right to do so, since he 
made a speech closing seven minutes before the expiration of his allotted 
hour, and wholly neglected to mention the question of Free-soil. The 
gentleman found time to mention almost every conceivable question that 
was not in issue, and closed his speech, with seven minutes of time left, 
without alluding, in the smallest degree, to the only question that was in 
issue — I mean the-question of Free-soil. Why was this ? Has it been 
found difficult to unite the Whigs north and south on this issue ? After 
running Ge<5tral Taylor at the North as a better Free-soil man than even 
Van Buren himself, and at the South as the very prince of slave-holders; 
after obtaining the anti-war vote of the North by one story, and the votes 
of the war-party at the South by another story; after traversing the re- 
public from north to south, representing General Taylor as being " all 
things to all men," thus obtaining for him thousands of Democratic 
votes, it is very convenient to forget the real points of the canvass, and 
claim a victory on other points not introduced, and never discussed 
before the people. 

May I ask the gentleman whether he did not himself tell the people 
in his district that General Taylor would approve of the Wilmot pro- 
viso ? 

Mr. Hunt. I said I had no doubt of it. 

Mr. Brown. Now, Mr. Chairman, if I should ask you or any other 
southern representative what you told your constituents, I should be assur- 
ed that you told them General Taylor never would approve the proviso. 

Mr. Hunt interposed, to say he would like to know what the gentle- 
man from Mississippi told the people on that subject. 

Mr. Brown. I told them General Cass would never approve of the 
Wilmot proviso, and it was my opinion that General Taylor would. 

Now, let me ask the gentleman whether he did not assure the people 
of New York that we should have a Free-soil administration if General 
Taylor was elected ? 

Mr. Hunt. We expressed our willingness to leave that question to 
the representatives of the people. 

Mr. Brown. And you, Mr. Chairman, and your southern colleagues, 
told your constituents that General Taylor would stand by the South 
on that question. 

What I maintain is, that you have no right, after obtaining a victory 
by such means as were employed in the late presidential election, to 
come into this House, in six short weeks after closing the drama, and 
claim a victory on points notoriously not in issue, and omit all mention 
of the great point on which the election notoriously turned, north, south, 
east and west. I say again, that on this slavery question, you made 
General Taylor all things to all men ; and it has been by such means 



160 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

that your boasted victory has been -won. And now, sir, let me ask the 
gentleman from New York, if I was not right in the beginning, when I 
said it was fortunate for the truth of history, and for the correct in- 
struction of mankind, that political tricksters were not the most accred- 
ited historians of their own lives, times, and tricks ? 

A word in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, as to what the people have not 
decided in the late presidential race. Rely upon it, sir, they have not 
decided in favor of Whig measures — they have not decided against 
Democratic measures. Thousands and tens of thousands of voters in 
the North have been brought to General Taylor's support on the Free- 
soil issue. Other thousands of honest, upright Democrats have voted 
for him as a no-party man. Whilst, by the glare of his military fame, 
he has carried captive the enthusiastic and ardent youth of the country. 
You and I, Mr. Chairman, know very well what means were employed 
in the South to commend the General to Democratic voters : how Gene- 
ral Cass was denounced as an Abolitionist — a political weathercock — a 
man of no fixed principles— a very political Judas, standing ready to 
betray the South with a kiss : how General Taylor was set down as the 
exact counterpart of all this— a patriot, with nothing to serve but his 
country — no party ties to bind him — no party wrongs to vindicate — no 
fixed political prejudices to gratify— a man like Washington, who bad 
filled the measure of his country's glory, and was best deserving his 
country's highest honors. Banks, tariffs, distributions, were all repud^iated 
party lines were wiped out — a political millennium was at hand — Gene- 
ral Taylor would scorn all party rules, and be the president alone of a 
great, happy, united nation of brothers— and above all things, his warm 
southern affections would bind him to the South and to southern institu- 
tions as with hooks of steel. It was by means like these you carried to 
his support thousands of Democratic voters. Whether all of these, or 
any considerable portion of them, will continue to follow his political 
fortunes, remains to be seen, and must, I think, depend on circum- 
stances. 

As a Democrat, I could wish General Taylor no worse fortune than 
to follow the counsels of his friend from New York. If he undertakes 
to uproot all the wise measures of the Democratic party, and to substi- 
tute Whig follies in their place, I take it for granted his Democratic 
supporters will abandon him ; and this done, your boasted triumph will 
turn out a barren victory. The gentleman from New York seems to 
have his misgivings, for he dare not go so far as to commit his party for 
a bank, though he has no doubt, I suppose, it ought and will be estab- 
lished. ^ 

The people are now, have been, and always will be, in favor of Demo- 
cratic measures, because these measures proclaim equality among men — 
• not social, but political equality ; not equality in mental or physical 
proportions, but equality in the possession and enjoyment of every right 
under the laws and Constitution. Democracy proclaims no moral, social, 
\ intellectual, or religious equality. In all these we admit that one man 
rises above another as do the stars in the firmament rise above the clods 
of the valley. But our code recognises no political distinctions among 
' men. Equal and exact justice to all, special privileges to none, is our 
motto. It is because in practice the Whig leaders repudiate this doc- 
trine, that the masses always have and always will repudiate the Whig 



LOUIS KOSSUTE. ICl 

leaders. What is your doctrine of protection but a cunningly-devised 
scheme to build up a privileged order in the country — to grant immuni- 
ties and political rights to the favored few, which must of necessity be 
denied to the toiling millions ? What your banking system but a system 
to plunder the many for the benefit of the few ? And so of all your 
measures, of all your policy. What right has the manufacturer to de- 
mand the passage of laws for his special protection ? And how dare 
you, in this land of equal laws, sanction such demands? Shall the 
banker have laws to legalize his frauds ? Shall he be allowed to loan 
his credit at usury, whilst the honest laborer may only take lawful inte- 
rest for his hard-earned dollars ? Your whole system is a system of 
favoritism. Your motto has always been, Let the government take care , 
of the rich, and the rich will take care of the poor. Well may Whifrf^ery 
rejoice in this the hour of its triumph, for a day of reckoning will come. 
Let Democracy be of good cheer, for the day will be Avhen the people 
shall winnow the harvest and separate the false from the good seed. Li 
that day Democracy will be stored in their heart of hearts, but Whiggery 
will be scattered as chaff before the winds. 



LOUIS KOSSUTH. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESEXTATIYES, JANUARY 2, 1850, ON THE 

RECEPTION OF LOUIS KOSSUTH. 

I WILL change the resolution so that it will read in this manner : — 

Be it understood, that the House of Representatives declines at this time to ex- 
press any opinion as to whether this government will or will not be indifferent to 
the doctrines of Kossuth. 

I offer this amendment in good faith. When, a little more than 
twelve months ago, I voted to send a national ship to bear this distin- 
guished man to our shores, I did it, sir, that he might come here in the 
character of an emigrant. I never dreamed — as I am sure no member 
of the last Congress ever dreamed — that he was coming here as a propa- 
gandist of new doctrines. I appeal to every member of this Congress, 
who was a member of the last House of Representatives, if any member 
supposed he was coming here upon any such mission ? The first we 
hear of his intentions was in one of his English speeches — I think in his 
Southampton speech — when for the first time he made it known that he 
was coming to procure the intervention of this government in the strug- 
gles that were going on in the Old World. I do not desire that our 
action here, either in inviting this distinguished man to this country, or 
inviting him to come to take a seat within the bar of this House, shall 
be construed into any expression of opinion upon the subject of his doc- 
trine of intervention. And why? I can very readily imagine that in 
the progress of human events a case may arise in which it may become 
important for this government to interfere. No such case has, in my 
judgment, arisen yet. But I would not, by saying that we never would 
interfere, cut ourselves off from the possibility of doing so if a case 
should arise. So much has been said upon this subject, not only by that 



162 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

distinguislied man himself, but by his friends in Congress and out of it, 
that the inference may be drawn that we either intend to endorse his 
doctrines upon the one side, or that Ave do not upon the other, that, in 
my judgment, it is imperative upon us to say whether, in our action 
here, Ave do intend to express a judgment pro or con. Surely this can- 
not wound the sentiment of the distinguished Governor of Hungary. 
But Avhether it does or does not, we are here the representatives of the 
American people, not responsible to Kossuth, but to the people of this 
eouritry — responsible for the exercise of an important trust, and the 
manner in which we shall exercise it will have an important bearing 
upon the present and future peace and prosperity of the country. I 
have done nothing, and I shall do nothing captiously. I am willing to 
do all proper honors to this distinguished man, but I am not prepared 
to shoAv him such honors as never have been shown to any living man. 
If it is the Avill of his friends to vote him an invitation Avithin the bar of 
this House, Avhen we have sufficiently discussed the question to shoAV to 
the American people that Ave do not intend to endorse his doctrine, then 
I am willing to withdraw opposition and invite him in. But you cannot 
separate this distinguished man from the great principles he avows. 
What does he tell you every day ? He says, I am not here to be com- 
plimented. I am here to procure the recognition of a great national 
])rinciple. And this is the shield Avhich he bears between himself and 
the American people, from day to day. No man, I undertake to say, 
can approach him except through this shield. You must endorse his 
doctrines, or he seeks no intercourse Avith you. I am for saying, in the 
language of that amendment, that Ave neither endorse nor refuse to en- 
force his doctrines at this time, reserving any such question until a pro- 
per case shall arise. 



THE SLAVE QUESTION. 

In the House of Representatives, January 30, 1850, on the subject of Slavery, and on 
the action of the Administration in relation to California and New Mexico, Mr. 
Browx said: — 

Gentlemen say they deprecate discussion on the subject of slaA'ery. 
My judgment approves it. We have gone too far to recede without an 
adjustment of our difficulties. Better far that this agitation should 
never have commenced. But Avhen Avrong has been perpetrated on one 
side and resented on the other, an adjustment in some form is indispen- 
sable. It is better so than to leave the thorn of discord thus planted, to 
rankle and fester, and finally to produce a ncA'cr-healing sore. We 
need attempt no such useless task as that of disguising from ourselves, 
our constituents, and in truth the Avorld at large, that ill blood has been 
engendered, that we are losing our mutual attachment, that we are daily 
becoming more and more estranged, that the fibres of the great cord 
which unites us as one people are giving way, and that Ave are fast verg- 
ing to ultimate and final disruption. I hold no communion Avith the 
spurious patriotism Avhich closes its eyes to the dangers Avhich visit us. 



THE SLAVE QUESTION. 163 

anrl with a loud voice, sing hosannas to the Union ; such patiiotism 
will not save the Union, it is destructive of the Union. Open wide 
your eyes and look these dangers full in the face, and with strong arms 
and stout hearts assault them, vanquish them, and on the field of your 
triumph erect an altar sacred to the cause of liherty, and on that altar 
offer as a willing sacrifice this accursed demon of discord. Do this, and 
we are safe; refuse, and these dangers will thicken, these misty ele- 
ments will grow darker and blacker as days roll on. The storm Avhich 
now lingers will burst, and the genius of dissolution will preside where 
the Union now is. 

I am for discussion, for an interchange of sentiments. Let there be 
no wrangling about small grievances, but with an elevated patriotism — 
a patriotism high as our noble mountains, and broad as the Union itself 
— let us come to the consideration of the difficulties and dangers which 
beset us. 

In all matters of dispute it is important to consider who committed 
the first wrong ; until this is done, no satisfactory basis of an adjust- 
ment can be established. 

The Union is divided in sentiment upon a great question, by a geo- 
graphical line. The North is opposed to slavery, and the South is in 
favor of it. The North is for abolishing it, the South is for maintaininor 
it. The North is for confining it within it in its present limits, where 
they fancy it will languish, and languishing, will die. The South is for 
leaving it unrestrained to go wherever (within our limits) it may be in- 
vited by soil, climate, and population. These issues and their necessary 
incidents have brought the two ends of the Union into their present 
perilous position — a position from which one or the other must recede, * 
or a conflict, dangerous to liberty and fatal to the Union, will certainly 
ensue. 

Who is at fault, or rather who was first in fault in this fraternal quar- 
rel ? We were the owners of slaves ; we bought them from your fathers. 
We never sought to make slaveholders of you, nor to force slavery upon 
you. When you emancipated the remnant of your slaves, we did not 
interpose. Content to enjoy the fruits of our industry at home, 
within our 'own limits, we never sought to intrude upon your domestic 
quiet. Not so with you. For twenty years or more, you have not 
ceased to disturb our peace. We have appealed in vain to your forbear- 
ance. Not only have you disregarded these appeals, but every appeal 
has been followed by some new act of outrage and aggression. We have 
in vain pointed to our domicils, and begged that you would respect the 
feelings of their inmates. You have threatened them with conflagration. 
When we have pointed to our Avives and our sleeping infants, and in 
their names besought your forbearance, you have spurned our entreaties 
and mocked the fears of these sacred pledges of our love. Long years 
of outrage upon our feelings and disregard of our rights have awakened 
in every southern heart a feeling of stern resistance. Think what you 
will, say what you v/ill, perpetrate again and again if you will, these acts 
of lawless tyranny ; the day and the hour is at hand when every south- 
ern son will rise in rebellion, when every tongue will say, Give us justice 
or give us death. 

I repeat, we have never sought to disturb your quiet. We have for- 
borne to retaliate your wrongs. Content to await a returning sense of 



164 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

justice, we have submitted. That sense of justice, we fear, never will 
return, and submission is no longer a virtue. We owe it to you, to our- 
selves, to our common country, to the friends of freedom throughout the 
world, to warn you that we intend to submit no longer. 

Gentlemen tell us they do not believe the South is in earnest. They 
believe we will still submit. Let me warn them to put away that delu- 
sion. It is fatal to the cause of peace. If the North embrace it the 
Union is gone. It is treason to encourage a hope of submission. Tell 
the truth, speak out boldly, go home and tell your people the issue is 
made up ; they must now choose between non-interference with southern 
rights on the one side, and a dissolution of the Union on the other. 
Tell them the South asks nothing from their bounty, but only asks their 
forbearance. 

The specious arguments by which you cover up your unauthorized 
attempts to drive us from the territories may deceive the unwary, but 
an enlightened public sentiment will not fail to detect its fallacy, and 
posterity will award you the credit of destroying the Union in a lawless 
effort to seize the spoils of a victory won by other hearts and hands than 
yours. Territory now free must remain free, say you. Who gave you 
the right to speak thus oracularly ? Is this an acquisition of your own, 
or is it a thing obtained by the joint effort of us all? I have been told 
that the United States acquired the territory from Mexico, and that the 
Congress, speaking for the United States, must dispose of it. Techni- 
cally speaking, the United States did make the acquisition ; but what is 
the United States ? a mere agent for the states, holding for them cer- 
tain political powers in trust, to be exercised for their mutual benefit, 
and among these is the power to declare war and make peace. In the 
exercise of these powers the territory was acquired, and for whom ? Kot 
certainly for the agent, but for the principal. Not for the United 
States, but the states. 

Who fought the battles, who won the victories which resulted in the 
acquisition? The people of the United States ? Certainly not. There 
is no such thing as the people of the United States. They can perform 
no act — have in fact no political existence. Do the people of the United 
States elect this Congress? No; we are elected by states — most of us 
by districts in states. The states elect senators, and the President is 
himself elected by state electoral colleges, and not by the people of the 
United States. There is no such political body as the people of the 
United States ; they can do nothing, have done nothing, have in fact no 
existence. When the war with Mexico began, on whom did the Presi- 
dent call ? Not, certainly, on the people of the United States, but on 
the people of the states by states, and by states they responded, by 
states they made their contributions to the grand army ; and whatever 
was acquired, was of necessity acquired for the states, each having an 
equal interest ; and the United States, as agent, trustee, or general re- 
pository of the common fund, is bound to do equal and exact justice to 
all the parties interested. 

The army was created and supported by thirty sovereignties allied 
together. These sovereignties acted through a common head for the 
common defence and general welfare of all. But it does not follow that 
such head may rightfully appropriate the award of the conflict to fifteen 
of the allies, leaving nothing to the remaining fifteen. Sovereigns are 



THE SLAVE QUESTION. 165 

equal ; there is no such thing as great or small sovereigns, or, to speak 
more correctly, sovereigns of great and small degree. Thej are equals, 
except when by conventional agreement that equality is destroyed. No 
such agreement has been made between the sovereigns composing our 
confederacy. Hence, Delaware is equal to New York, and the fifteen 
southern states are equal to the fifteen northern states. It follows that 
the fifteen sovereignties of the North cannot exclude the fifteen sove- 
reignties of the South from an equal participation in, and control over, 
the joint a,cquisition or property of all. Nor can the common agent, 
the United States, hearken to the voice of the fifteen northern in prefer- 
ence to those of the fifteen southern allies. So long as one of the 
sovereigns in alliance protests against a common disposition of what be- 
longs to all and to each one in an equal degree, no disposition can be 
rightfully made. The strong may take by force from the weak, but in 
such case power gives the right. The North may take from the South 
in this way, unless perchance it should turn out in the course of the con- 
flict that the South is the stronger party, in which case it would be our 
right to take from you. 

Without pursuing this course of reasoning, unprofitable as I feel it 
must be, I come at once to the conclusion, that we of Mississippi have 
the same right to go into the territories with our slave property as you 
of New York have to go there with your personal estate of w"hatever 
kind. And if you deny us this right, we will resist your authority, and 
to the last extremity. Y^ou afiect to think us not in earnest in this 
declaration. Look at the attitude of the South ; hear her voice as it 
comes up from her bench, her bar, her legislative halls, and, above all, 
from her people. Sir, there is not a hamlet in the South from which 
you will not hear the voice of stern resistance to your lawless mandate. 
Our men will write it on their shields, our women will teach little chil- 
dren to lisp it with their earliest breath. I invoke your forbearance on 
this question. Ask yourselves if it is right to exasperate eight millions 
of people upon an abstraction; a matter to us of substance and of life, 
but to you the merest shadow of an abstraction. Is it likely, let me 
ask, that the Union can survive the shock which must ensue if you drive 
eight millions of people to madness and desperation ? Look, sir, to the 
position of Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and the glorious 
old state of South Carolina ; listen to the warning voice of these, and 
all the Southern States, as they come to us upon every breeze that 
sweeps from the South, and tell me if we are not sporting above a vol- 
cano. Oh ! gentlemen, pause, I beseech you, in this mad career. The 
South cannot, will not, dare not submit to your demand. The conse- 
quences to her are terrible beyond description ; to you forbearance 
would be a virtue — virtue adorned with love, truth, justice, and patriot- 
ism. To som.e men I can make no appeal. I appeal not to the gentle- 
man from Ohio. He, like Peter the Hermit, feels himself under some 
religious obligation to lead on this crusade. I make no appeal to the 
putative father of the Wilmot proviso ; like Ephraim, he is joined to his 
idols — I will let him alone. But to sound men, to patriotic and just 
men, I do make a solemn appeal that they array themselves on the side 
of the Constitution, and save the Union. When the fatal step is taken 
it will be too late to repent the folly of this hoar. When the deed is 
done, and the fatal consequences have fallen upon us, it will be vain, 



166 ALBERT G. BEOWN. 

idle, worse than folly to deprecate the evil councils which now prevail. 
Now, now is the time for good men to do their duty. Let those who 
desire to save the Constitution and the Union come out from among the 
wicked and array themselves on the side of justice. And here in this 
hall, erected by our fathers and dedicated to liberty and law, we will 
make new vows, enter into new covenants to stand together and fight 
the demon of discord until death shall summon us to another and better 
world. 

You think that slavery is a great evil. Very well, think so ; but keep 
your thoughts to yourselves. If it be an evil, it is our evil ; if it be a 
curse, it is our curse. We are not seeking to force it upon you ; we 
intend to keep it ourselves. If you do not wish to come in contact with 
this crying evil, stay where you are, it will never pursue you. 

For myself, I regard slavery as a great moral, social, political, and 
religious blessing — a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master. 
This is my opinion. I do not seek to propagate it. It does not concern 
me whether you think so or not, I have seen more of slavery than you, 
know more about it ; and ray opinions are, I think, worth more than 
yours. Slavery, African slavery, was, as I religiously believe, planted 
in this country through the providence of God ; and he, in his own good 
time, will take it away. Civilization dawned in Africa. The Christian 
relio-ion was preached to the African race before its votaries carried it to 
other lands. Africa had the glad tidings of the Saviour long before his 
divine mission was revealed to us. And where is she now? Centuries 
have passed away, and all traces of Christianity, every vestige of civiliza- 
tion, have departed from that degraded and benighted land — a race of 
cannibals, roasting, eating men as we do swine and cattle. Resisting 
Avith fire and sword all efforts of Christian ministers to lift them from the 
deep degradation, they perseveringly worship idols and graven images, 
and run continually after false gods. Look at the condition of this 
people, and contrast it with the worst condition of the same race in this 
country, and tell me if the eye of fancy, in its utmost stretch, can mea- 
sure the elevation at which the Southern slave stands above the African 
in his native jungle ? And yet philanthropy, double distilled, extra 
refined philanthropy, bewails in piteous accents the fallen condition of 
the poor slave. The negro race in the South have been civilized ; many 
of them evangelized. Some are pure Christians ; all have been improved 
in their moral, social, and religious condition. And who shall undertake 
to say it was not within the providence of their Creator to transplant 
them to our soil for wise, beneficent, and holy purposes ? 

It is no part of my purpose to discuss this proposition. The subject, 
in this view of it, belongs rather to the pulpit than to the halls of legis- 
lation. 

It may seem to those not familiar with the state of public sentiment 
North and South, and the dangerous issues to which it is conducting us, 
out of time and out of place for us to discuss the value of the Union. 
I am not afraid of the consequences of such a discussion. It is a dis- 
cussion not to be coveted, but one which the times and tempers of men 
have forced upon us. It is useless to deny that the Union is in danger. 
To discuss its value is to ascertain its worth. When we shall have done 
this, we can better decide how great a sacrifice we can afford to make to 
secure its perpetuity. 



THE SLAVE QUESTION. 1G7 

We of the South have ever been the fast friends of the Union. Wo 
have been so from an earnest attachment to its founders, and from a 
feeling of elevated patriotism, a patriotism which rises above all grovel- 
ling thoughts, and entwines itself about our country, and our Avbole 
country. We have made, and are now making day by day, greater 
sacrifices to uphold and maintain the Union in all its purity and dignity, 
than all the other parts of the country. Drop for a moment the sacri- 
fice of feeling ; forget the galling insults you are habitually heaping upon 
us, and let us look to other sacrifices. We export annually, in rice, 
cotton, and tobacco, the peculiar products of our soil, more than seventy- 
five millions of dollars in value. Your whole national exports do but a 
little exceed one hundred and forty millions of dollars. These articles 
of southern export are the support of your immense carrying trade, and 
of all your flourishing and profitable commerce ; and these do not include 
the sugar of Louisiana, Texas, and Florida, nor do I estimate the 
cotton, rice, and tobacco consumed in the United States. If all these 
were embraced, our exports could not fall short of one hundred and 
twenty millions of dollars. I need not add, that as a separate, inde- 
pendent confederacy we should have the heaviest agricultural export of 
any people on the face of the earth ; and that our wealth would in a short 
time be commensurate with our immense exports, no reasonable man can 
doubt. In the Union, our exports become the common trading fund of 
the nation, and the profits go into the general cofl'ers. We know all 
this; and more, we know how much we contribute to the support of the 
Government, and we know too how little we get back. It gives me no 
pleasure to discuss questions like this, but a solemn duty I will not forego, 
from any mawkish, sentimental devotion to the Union. It is right that 
we fully understand one another. You think the South is not in earnest. 
Now, this opinion is based upon one of two hypotheses, either that we are 
too much devoted to the Union to run the hazard of its dissolution by a 
manly vindication of our rights ; or else that we are afraid to encounter 
the perils of a dissolution. That we have loved the Union is most true. 
That our affections entwine themselves about it, and are reluctant to give 
it up, is also true. But our affection is no ordinary plant. Nourish it, 
and it will grow in the poorest soil. Neglect it, or trample upon it, and 
it will perish in the richest fields. I will not recount the story of our 
wrongs. I but ask you, can such wrongs ever be the handmaids of love, 
of that mutual and earnest, devoted love, which stood godfather when the 
infant Union was baptized, and without whose fostering care it cannot, 
will not, must not survive ? Throw an impartial eye over the history 
of the last twenty years, and answer me if there is anything there which 
challenges our devotion ? Who does not know that time after time we 
have turned away in sorrow from your oppressions, and yet have come 
back clinging to the Union, and proclaiming that " with all her faults we 
loved her still." And you expect us to do so now again and again; you 
expect us to return, and, on bended knees, crave your forbearance. No, 
you do not; you cannot think so meanly of us. There is nothing in 
our past history which justifies the conclusion that we will thus abase 
ourselves. You know how much a high-toned people ought to bear ; and 
you know full well that we have borne to the last extremity. Y'ouknow 
that we ought not to submit any longer. There is not a man of lofty 
soul among you all, who in his secret heart does not feel that we ought 



103 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

not to submit. If you fancy that our devotion to the Union will keep us 
in the Ujiion, you are mistaken. Our love for the Union ceases with the 
justice of the Union. We cannot love oppression, nor hug tyranny to 
our bosoms. 

Have we any reason to fea7' a dissolution of the Union ? Look at the 
question dispassionately, and answer to yourselves the important inquiry, 
Can anything be expected. from the fears of the southern people? Do 
not deceive yourselves — look at things as they really are. For myself, 
I can say with a clear conscience, we do not fear it ; we are not appalled 
at the prospect before us ; we deprecate disunion, but we do not fear it ; we 
know our position too well for that. Whilst you have been heaping out- 
rage upon outrage, adding insult to insult, our people have been calmly 
calculating the value of the Union. The question has been considered 
in all its bearings, and our minds are made up. The point has been 
designated beyond which we will not submit. We will not, because sub- 
mission beyond that point involves consequences to us more terrible than 
disunion. It involves the fearful consequences of sectional degradation. 
We have not been slow in manifesting our devotion to the Union. In 
all our national conflicts we have obeyed the dictates of duty, the behests 
of patriotism. Our money has gone freely. The lives of our people 
have been freely given up. Their blood has washed many a blot from 
the national escutcheon. We have loved the Union, and we love it yet ; 
but not for this, or a thousand such Unions, will we suffer dishonor at your 
hands. 

I tell you candidly, we have calculated the value of the Union. Your 
injustice has driven us to it. Your oppression justifies me to-day in 
discussing the value of the Union, and I do so freely and fearlessly. 
Your press, your people, and your pulpit, may denouncethis as treason ; 
be it so. You may sing hosannas to the Union — it is well. British 
lords called it treason in our fathers when they resisted British tyranny. 
British orators were eloquent in their eulogiums on the British crown 
Our fathers felt the oppression, they saw the hand that aimed the blow, 
and they resolved to resist. The result is before the world. We will 
resist, and trust to God and our own stout hearts for the consequences. 

The South afraid of dissolving the Union ?— why should we fear ? 
What is there to alarm us or awaken our apprehensions ? Are we not 
able to maintain ourselves ? Shall eight millions of freemen, with more 
than one hundred millions of annual exports, fear to take their position 
among the nations of the earth ? With our cotton, sugar, rice, and to- 
bacco, products of a southern soil, yielding us annually more than a 
hundred millions of dollars, need we fear the frowns of the world ? You 
tell us all the world is against us on the slavery question. We know more 
of this than you; fanaticism in the Old World, like fanaticism at home, 
assails our domestic relations, but we know how much British commerce 
' and British labor depend for subsistence on our cotton, to feel at all 
startled by your threats of British power. Massachusetts looms will 
yield a smaller profit, and British looms will stop when you stop the 
supply of southern cotton. When the looms stop, labor will stop, ships 
^ will stop, commerce will stop, bread will stop. Build yourselves no 
castles in the air. Picture to your minds no such halcyon visions as 
that Great Britain will meddle with our slaves. She made an experiment 
in the West Indies in freeing negroes. It cost her one hundred millions 



THE SLAVE QUESTION. . 169 

of pounds sterling, and crippled her commerce to more than three times 
that amount, and now her emancipated blacks are relapsing into a state 
of barbarism. By the united verdict of every British statesman the 
experiment was a signal failure, injurious to the negro and detrimental 
to the kingdom. England will not interfere with southern slaves. Our 
cotton bags are our bonds of peace. 

Have we anything to fear from you in the event of dissolution? A 
little gasconade, and sometimes a threat or two, altogether out of place 
on so grave an issue as this, are resorted to on your part. As to there 
being any conflict of arms growing out of a dissolution, I have not 
thought it at all probable. You complain of your association with slaves 
in the Union. We propose to take them out of the Union — to dissolve 
the unpleasant association. Will you seek a battle-field to renew, amid 
blood and carnage, this loathsome association ? I take it for granted 
that you will not. But if you should, we point you to the record of the 
past, and warn you, by its blood-stained pages, that we shall be ready 
to meet you. When you leave your homes in New England, or in the 
great West, on this mission of love — this crusade against the South ; 
when you come to take slavery to your bosoms, and to subdue eight 
millions of southern people, I warn you to make all things ready. Kiss 
your wives, bid your children a long farewell, make peace with your 
God; for I warn you that you may never return. 

I repeat, we deprecate disunion. Devoted to the Constitution — reve- 
rencing the Union — holding in sacred remembrance the names, the deeds, 
and the glories of our common and illustrious ancestry — there is no 
ordinary ill to which we would not bow sooner than dissolve the political 
association of these states. If there was any point short of absolute 
ruin to ourselves and desolation to our country, at which these aggressive 
measures would certainly stop, we would say at once, go to that point and 
give us peace. But we know full well, that when all is obtained that 
you now ask, the cormorant appetite for power and plunder will not be 
satisfied. The tiger may be driven from his prey, but when once he 
dips his tongue in blood, he will not relinquish his victim without a 
struo-o-le. 

I warn gentlemen, if they persist in their present course of policy, 
that the sin of disunion is on their heads — not ours. If a man assaults 
me, and I strike in self-defence, I am no violator of the public peace. 
If one attacks me with such fury as to jeopardize my life, and I slay 
him in the conflict, I am no murderer. If you attempt to force upon us 
sectional desolation and — what to us is infinitely worse — sectional degra- 
dation, we will resist you; and if in the conflict of resistance the Union 
is dissolved, we are not responsible. If any man charges me w^ith har- 
boring sentiments of disunion, he is greatly mistaken. If he says that 
I prefer disunion to sectional and social degradation, he does me no 
more than justice. 

Does any man desire to know at what time and for what cause I would 
dissolve the Union, I will tell him : At the first moment after you con- 
summate your first act of aggression upon slave property, I would declare 
the Union dissolved ; and for this reason : such an act, perpetrated after 
the warning we have given you, would evince a settled purpose to inter- 
pose your authority in the management of our domestic affairs, thus 
degrading us from our rightful position as equals to a state of depend- 



170 . ALBERT G. BROWN. 

ence and subordination. Do not mistake me ; I do not say that such an 
act would, per se, justify disunion ; I do not say that our exclusion from' 
the territories would alone justify it ; I do not say that the destruction 
of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, nor even its abolition 
here, nor yet the prohibition of the slave trade among the states, would 
justify it. It may be, that not one, nor two, nor all of these combined 
would justify disunion. These are but the initiative steps — they lead 
you on to the mastery over us, and you shall not take these steps. The 
man must have studied the history of our revolt against the power of 
Britain to but little purpose who supposes that the throwing a few 
boxes of tea into the water in Boston harbor produced, or had any ma- 
terial influence in producing, the mighty conflict of arms which ensued. 
Does any man suppose that the stamp act and its kindred measures pro- 
duced the revolution ? They produced a solemn conviction on the minds 
of our fathers that Britain Avas determined to oppress and degrade the 
colonies. This conviction prepared a heroic people for resistance ; and 
the otherwise trivial incident of throwing the tea overboard supplied the 
occasion for manifesting that state of public sentiment. I warn gentle- 
men by the history of these transactions, not to outrage the patience of 
a patriotic people, nor yet, like the British king and parliament, to spurn 
our entreaties, and turn a deaf ear to our prayers for justice. 

Before the first fatal step is taken, remember that we have interests 
involved which we cannot relinquish ; rights which it were better to die 
with than live without. The direct pecuniary interest involved in this 
issue is not less than twenty hundred millions of dollars, and yet the loss 
of this will be the least of the calamities which you are entailing upon us. 
Our country is to be made desolate. We are to be driven from our 
homes — the homes hallowed by all the sacred associations of family and 
friends. We are to be sent, like a people accursed of God, to wander 
through the land, homeless, houseless, and friendless ; or, what is ten 
thousand times worse than these, than all, remain in a country now pros- 
perous and happy, and see ourselves, our wives and children, degraded to 
a social position with the black race. These, these are the frightful, 
terrible consequences you would entail upon us. Picture to yourselves 
Hungary, resisting the powers of Austria and Russia ; and if Hungary, 
which had never tasted liberty, could make such stout resistance, what 
may you not anticipate from eight millions of southrons made desperate 
by your aggression ? I tell you, sir, sooner than submit we would dis- 
solve a thousand such unions as this. Sooner than allow our slaves to 
become our masters, we would lay Avaste our country Avith fire and 
SAVord, and with our broken spears dig for ourselves honorable graves. 

You tell us, sir, there is no intention of pushing us to extremities like 
these. I do not doubt the sincerity of gentlemen Avho make this avoAval. 
If there Avas fixedness in their positions I would believe them, I would 
trust them. If members of Congress were to the political Avhat stars are 
to the planetary system, I would take their solemn — and, I hope, sin- 
cere — declarations, and be satisfied. I should feel secure. But a few 
days, a brief space, and you Avill pass aAvay, and your places Avill be 
filled by men more hostile than you, as you are more hostile than your 
predecessors, and the next who come after your successors Avill be more 
hostile than they. Look to the Senate — the conservative branch of the 
government. Already there are senators from the mighty states of Ncaa 



THE SLAVE QUESTION. 171 

York and Ohio, who repudiate the Constitution. One [Mr. Chase, of 
Ohio] says the Constitution is a nullity as regards slavery, and another 
[Mr. Seward, of New York] declares that slavery can and will be 
abolished, and that you and he will do it. He tells us how this is to be 
done. He, too, repudiates the constitutional obligation, and says that 
slavery rests for its security on public sentiment, and that public senti- 
ment must and will destroy it. These are fearful declarations, coming 
from that quarter. They evince a settled purpose to pursue these ag- 
gressive movements to the last terrible extremity; and yet, sir, we are 
asked to fold our arms and listen to the syren song that all your ills will 
soon be o'er. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, before the sands of my brief hour have quite 
run out, let me turn for a moment to the late recent and extraordinary 
movements in the territory of California, — movements fraught with in- 
calculable mischief, and, if not arrested, destined to entail calamities the 
most terrible upon this country. I am told that the late administration 
is in some degree responsible for these movements. I know not if this 
be true. I hope it is not. Indeed, I have authority for saying it is 
not. Certainly no evidence has been advanced that the statement is 
true. But I care not who prompted the anomalous state of things now 
existing in California. At whatever time, and by whomsoever done, it 
has been without precedent, against the voice of the people's representa- 
tives, in derogation of the Constitution of the United States, and intended 
to rob the Southern States of their just and rightful possessions. Viewing 
the transaction in this light, and without stopping to inquire whose it 
was, I denounce it as unwise, unpatriotic, sectional in its tendencies, in- 
sulting to the South, and in the last degree despicable. 

Twelve short months ago it was thought necessary to invoke the 
authority of Congress for the people of California to form a state con- 
stitution. The present Secretary of the Navy, then a member of this 
House, did, on the 7th day of February, 1849, introduce a bill for that 
purpose. The first section declared " that the Congress doth consent 
that a new -state may be erected out of the territory ceded to the United 
States," &c. {^See Congressional Globe, 2 Sess. 30 Con. p. 477.) 

Whether the honorable Secretary, as a member of the cabinet, ad- 
vised and consented to the late extraordinary proceedings in California, 
I pretend not to know. I do know that he bitterly inveighed against 
General Cass, in 1848, for a supposed intimation that the people of the 
territories might settle the slavery question for themselves, and chiefly 
on the ground that it was a monstrous outrage to allow aliens and 
foreigners to snatch from the South territory won by the valor of her 
troops. I know that he introduced the bill to which I have adverted, 
and urged its passage in a speech which was said to have given him his 
position in the cabinet. He certainly thought at that time, that the 
consent of Congress was necessary to the formation of a state govern- 
ment in California. The bill itself, to say nothing of the speech, 
assigned one pregnant reason for this thought, for by its second section 
it declared "that the foregoing consent is given upon the following re- 
servations and conditions : First, that the United States hereby uncon- 
ditionallj reserves to the federal government all right of property in the 
public lands." 

It was then thought a matter of some moment to reserve to the par- 



172 ALBERT ii. BROWN. 

ties in interest, their right of property in the soil. But the progressive 
spirit of the President and cabinet has gone far beyond such idle whims, 
and "the introduction of California into the Union as a sovereign state 
is earnestly recommended," without reservation of any kind, save alone 
that her constitution shall conform to the Constitution of the United 
States. If any one here knows the secrets of the cabinet councils, he 
can best inform us whether Mr. Secretary Preston thought it worth his 
while to intimate to the President and his associates that the formation 
of an independent government in California would of necessity vest in 
such government the right of property in the soil, and that her incorpo- 
ration into the Union without reservation, would be to surrender the 
right of eminent domain. It would disclose an interesting piece of 
cabinet history to ascertain whether so trivial a matter ever engrossed 
the thoughts of that most august body — the President and his constitu- 
tional advisers. 

It is amusing to see with how much cunning the author of the late 
special message endeavors to divide the responsibility of this nefarious 
proceeding with the late administration. Several times in the message 
it is broadly hinted that President Polk took the initiative in this busi- 
ness. This may be so. I have seen no evidence of it, and do not 
believe it; but whether true or false, it does not render the transaction 
less odious or more worthy of support. The President himself seems to 
think it too much for one administration to bear, and, therefore, strives 
to divide its responsibility with his distinguished Democratic predecessor. 
I commend his discretion, more than his generosity. It is discreet in 
him to shake off as much of the odium of this thing as possible. If it 
had been a worthy action, I doubt if he would not have appropriated the 
honors of it entirely to himself. 

The President sees, as well as you or I, that there is a fearful ac- 
countability ahead, and he cries out in time, " Polk was to blame — I 
only followed up what he began." I would to God he were as willing 
to carry out all of Polk's unfinished plans. 

Is there nothing wrong, let me ask the friends of the President, in 
this thing of the Executive — of his own volition, and upon his own re- 
sponsibility — establishing a state government over the territory of the 
United States, and that too after Congress had been invoked and had 
refused her consent to the establishment of such a government ? I have 
seen the time when if this thing had been done, the nation would have 
reverberated with the eloquent burst of patriotic indignation from gen- 
tlemen on the other side. General Jackson was charged with taking 
the responsibility, but he never assumed responsibility like this. 

The manner of doing this thing is still more extraordinary than the 
thing itself. General Riley, a military commander, charged with the 
execution of certain necessary civil functions, is made the man of power 
in this business. That officer, on the 3d day of June, 1849, issued his 
proclamation, a paper at once novel and bold. His object is to make a 
new state, and he commences thus : — 

" Congress having failed at its recent session to provide a new government for this 
country, the undersigned would call attention to the means which he deems best," 
&c., &c. 

Yes, sir, there it is. Congress having failed to give government to 



THE SLAVE QUESTION. 173 

California, General Riley notifies the inhabitants tliat he has taken 
matters into his own hands; that he will give tliem a government, and 
that HE will authorize them to make a state for themselves. He does 
this, too, because Congress had refused. 

I must do General Riley the justice to say he is not wholly an usurper 
in this business. He declares to the world in this same proclamation (a 
document by the way drawn up with acumen and legal precision), that 
the course indicated by him " is advised by the President and the Secre- 
taries of State and of War," and he (General Riley) solemnly affirms 
that his acts are "fully authorized bylaw." I hope the General did 
not understand that Mr, Secretary Preston's bill was the law that "fully 
authorized" his acts. There might be a difficulty in sustaining the 
opinion on that basis, inasmuch as the bill did not pass Congress. 

There are stranger things than these in this Riley proclamation " ad- 
vised by the President, and Secretaries Clayton and Crawford." The 
General not only sets forth circumstantially what is to be done, but he 
designates the persons who are to do the things which he bids to be done. 
Hear him : — 

" Every free male citizen of the United States and of Upper California, 21 years 
of age, TV-ill be entitled to the rijjht of suffrage. All citizens of Loioer California who 
have been forced to come into this territory on account of having rendered assistance 
to the American troops during the recent war with Mexico, should also be allowed to 
vote in the district where they actually reside," &c. 

Now, sir, I humbly ask who gave the President and his cabinet the 
right to "advise" this military commander by one sweeping proclama- 
tion to admit the ''''free male citizens of Upper California," and "all 
the citizens oi Lower California,'' (then in the country, under certain 
circumstances,) to the right of voting ? In so important a matter as 
forming a state constitution, which was to affect important interests 
within the territory, and still more important interests without the terri- 
tory, it would have been at least respectful to his southern constituents, 
if the President had confined the voting to wlnte people ; but all free 
males of Upper California, and all from Lower California, whether 
bond or free, were fully authorized to vote. Shame, shame upon the 
man who, in the midst of our struggles for blood-bought rights, thus 
coolly submits them to the arbitrament of such a people. 

I have been speaking of Avhat the President expressly authorized. 
He, by his agent. General Riley, in terms, authorized these people of 
whom I have been speaking to vote. They did vote ; they were voted 
for ; some of them had seats in the so-called California Convention. 
But the gross wrong — the palpable outrage — did not stop here. We all 
know — the President knows — that everybody voted. The whole hete- 
rogeneous mass of Mexicans, and foreign adventurers, and interlopers 
voted; and yet, the President, without one word of comment or caution 
touching these strange events, calmly recommends the progeny of this 
strange convention to the favorable consideration of Congress. If I 
had not ceased to be amazed at the conduct of the present President of 
the United States, I should indeed wonder what singular infatuation had 
possessed the old man's brain when he made that recommendation. Can 
it be that he has not read the treaty w^ith Mexico, or the laws of his 
own country on the subject of naturalizing foreigners, that he thus re- 
commends the admission of a state into the Union, with a constitution 



174 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

formed mainly by persons who -were strangers to our laws, and who, by 
our laws and by the treaty, were not citizens, and consequently had no 
right of suffrage ? Look you,' sir, to the treaty with Mexico. In its 
8th article it is declared : " That Mexicans who shall prefer to remain in 
the territory may either retain the rights and title of Mexican citizens 
or acquire those of citizens of the United States." They shall make 
their election in one year after the treaty is ratified. "And those who 
shall remain in the territory after the expiration of that year without 
havincr declared their intention to retain the character of Mexicans, 
shall be considered to have elected to become citizens of the United 
States." 

Mexicans remaining in the territory after twelve months " shall be 
considered to have elected to become citizens of the United States;" 
but who shall make them citizens ? This question is fully answered by 
the ninth article of this treaty. We have seen that Mexicans may 
acquire the rights of citizens of the United States, and that under cer- 
tain circumstances they are deemed to have elected to become citizens, 
&c. Read the ninth article of the treaty : " Mexicans who, in the ter- 
ritories aforesaid, shall not preserve the character of citizens of the 
Mexican Republic, conformably with what is stipulated in the preceding 
article, shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States, and 
be ADMITTED at the proper time (to be judged of by the Congress of the 
United States) to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the 
United States according to the principles of the Constitution." 

Here we have it. They are " to he incorporated into the Union, and 
he admitted at the proper time, to he judged of hy Congress, to the enjoy- 
ment of all the rights of citizens of the United /States." Where did 
the President get his authority to dispense with these articles, these 
solemn stipulations of the treaty ? By what right does he extend to 
these people that dearest privilege of an American freeman, the right 
of suffrage ? By what authority does he confer the power to hold office, 
to sit in a convention, and to trample under foot the rights of the 
southern people? The late Administration had something to do with 
making this treaty, and they provided that these people, at a proper 
time, to be judged of by Congress, should enjoy all these rights. Con- 
gress has not judged in the matter. Congress has done nothing. Con- 
gress has refused to act, and the President tells these people to vote, to 
accept office, to make a state constitution, to elect governors, secreta- 
' ries, auditors, members of Congress, &c., &c. And when they have 
done as he bid them, he " earnestly recommends their acts to the favora- 
ble consideration of Congress." And this is the President who was 
going to act according to the laws and the Constitution, and abstain from 
all interference with the duties of Congress. teynpora ! mores! 

[Here the hammer fell, and Mr. Brown gave notice that he would 
append the unfinished remarks to his printed speech.] 

The present President of the United States delights in doing in all 
things like Washington. In his annual message he alludes no less than 
three times, with evident self-complacency, to supposed similitudes be- 
tween his acts and those of the illustrious Father of his Country. 

In the earlier history of the republic, and in the time of Washington's 
presidency, a case bearing close resemblance to the one under discussion 
was presented for his consideration. How closely the second Washing 



THE SLAVE QUESTION. 175 

ton copies the precedent of the first may be gathered from the history 
of the transaction. That history has been briefly sketched by a distin- 
guished, eloquent, and aged friend of President Taylor. I read from a 
pamphlet by George Poindexter : — 

_" Shortly after the cession by Xorth Carolina of the south-western territory, cer- 
tain influential individuals, anxious to hasten the formation of an independent state 
government within the ceded territory, induced the inhabitants to call a convention 
and frame a state constitution, to which they gave the name of ' the State of Frank- 
lin.'_ This proceeding met the unhesitating frowns and disapprobation of the Father 
of his Country— the illustrious Washington— who caused it to be instantly sup- 
pressed, and in lieu of this factitious state government, a territorial government Avas 
extended to the inhabitants by Congress, under which they lived and prospered for 
many years." 

If the first President, the great, the good, the illustrious Washington, 
would not listen to the proposition of the Franklanders, citizens as they 
were of the United States, for admission into the Union, under the cir- 
cumstances attending their application, I ask how the present President 
shall justify his proceeding, in first prompting the free wale citizens of 
Upper California, all the people of Lower California, and in fact the 
interlopers and adventurers from all the nations of the earth, now upon 
our territory, to form a state constitution, and ask admission into our 
Union ? And now when this constitution, the creation of such a con- 
glomerate mass, is about to be presented, let the friends of the President 
justify, if they can, his "earnest recommendation that it may receive 
the favorable consideration of Congress." 

Frankland was not admitted as a state, but a territorial government 
was given to the country under the name of Tennessee. As a territory 
these people again applied for admission, and again their application 
was rejected. I read from Poindexter's pamphlet the history of this 
second application: — 

"Subsequent to these transactions, the inhabitants of the south-western territory 
having increased, as it was believed, to a sufficient number to entitle them to become 
one of the states of the Union, the territorial legislature directed a census to be taken 
under the authority of an act passed by that body. This census having been so 
taken, exhibited a number of free inhabitants exceeding 00,000 — being a greater 
number than was required by the ordinance of 1787 to admit them intolhe Union ; 
and on the 28th of November, 1795, the governor being authorized thereto by law, 
issued his proclamation requiring the inhabitants of the several counties of the ter- 
ritory to choose persons to represent them in convention, for the purpose of forming 
a constitution or permanent form of government. This body so chosen, met in con- 
vention on the Uth January, 1796, and adopted a constitution, in which they de- 
clared the people of that part of said territory which was ceded by North Carolina, 
to be a free and independent state, by the name of the State of Tennessee. With- 
out entering into minute details of all the proceedings which took place in relation 
to this constitution, it will be sufficient for my present purpose to refer to the Sen- 
ate Journal of the first session of the fourth Congress, to Avhich that constitution was 
submitted for the reception and approbation of Congress. In the report of the com- 
mittee of the Senate, to whom this constitution was referred, it will be seen that this 
act of the territorial authorities was deemed premature and irregular ; that the cen- 
sus ordered to be taken of the inhal^itants Avas in many respects deficient in detail, 
and more especially that the enumeration of the inhabitants must, by the Constitu- 
tion, be made by Congress ; that this rule applied to the original states of the Union, 
and as their rights as members of the Union are aQ"ected by the admission of new 
states, the same principle which enjoins the census of their inhabitants to be taken 
under the authority of Congress, equally requires the enumeration of the inhabi- 
tants of any new state, laid out by Congress in like manner, should be made under 
their authority. This rule, the committee are of opinion, left Congress without dis- 
cretion on this point. The committee therefore reported, that the inhabitants of that. 



176 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

part of the territory south of Ohio, ceded by North Carolina, are not at this time 
entitled to be received as a new state into the Union. This example is drawn from 
the action of Con<i;ress durinfr the administration of Washington, and will serve to 
show you, sir, the great caution with which, under the administration of that illus- 
trious individual, the state was admitted into the Union." 

In the purer and better days of the republic it was thought necessary 
to consult Conrrrcss as to the disposition to be made of the territory be- 
longing to the United States, and our fathers thought it necessary to 
show a decent regard to the demands of the Constitution, in admitting 
new states into the Union. But in these latter days, when soldiers be- 
come statesmen, without study, and men iiituitivehj understand the Con- 
stitution, the old-fashioned notions of Washington and his compatriots 
are treated with scorn, and we are given to understand that the soldier- 
President can make new states without the aid of Congress, and in de- 
fiance of the Constitution. Whether the people will submit to this high- 
handed proceeding I do not know; but for my single self I am pre- 
pared to say, that ^^ live or die, sink or swim, survive or ]j&^'ish,'' I will 
oppose it " at all hazards and to the last extremity." 

What, Mr. Chairman, is to be the effect of admitting California into 
the Union as a state ? Independent, sir, of all the objections I have 
been pointing out, it will effectually unhinge that sectional balance 
which has so long and happily existed between the two ends of the 
Union, and at once give to the North that dangerous preponderance in 
the Senate, which ambitious polititions have so earnestly desired. The 
admission of one such state as California, opens the way for, and renders 
easy the admission of another. The President already prompts New 
Mexico to a like course. The two will reach out their hands to a 
third, and they to a fourth, fifth, and sixth. Thus precedent follows 
precedent, Avith locomotive velocity and power, until the North has the 
two-thirds required to change the Constitution. When this is done 
THE Constitution will be changed. That public opinion, to which 
Senator Seward so significantly alludes, will be seen, and its power will 
be felt — universal emancipation will become your rallying cry. We see 
this. It is clearly set forth in all your movements. The sun at noon- 
day is not more visible than is this startling danger. Its presence does 
arouse our fears and set our thoughts in motion. It comes with giant 
strides and under the auspices of a southern President, but we will meet 
it, and we will vanquish it. The time for action is almost come. It is 
well for us to arrange the order of battle. I have listened, and will 
again listen with patience and pleasure, to the plans of our southern 
friends. My own opinion is this : that we should resist the introduction of 
California as a state, and resist it successfully ; resist it by our votes 
first, and lastly by other means. We can, at least, force an adjournment 
zvithout her admission. This being done, we are safe. The Southern 
States, in convention at Nashville, will devise means for vindicating 
their rights. I do not know what these means zvill be, but I know what 
tliey mag be, and with propriety and safety. They may be to carry 
slaves into all of southern California, as the property of sovereign 
states, and there hold them, as we have a right to do ; and if molested, 
defend them, as is both our right and duty. 

We ask you to give us our rights by NON-INTERVENTION ; if you 
refuse, I am for taking them by "armed occupation. 



SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY. 177 



SQUATTER SOYEREIGXTY. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 12, 1850, DISSENT- 
ING FROM CERTAIN VIEAVS PRESENTED TO THE SENATE BY MR. CASS. 

Mr. Brown said he would occupy a very few minutes, in presentinf^ 
some views which he should have presented the other day, but for the 
expiration of his hour. 

Having already taken his position against the President's recommen- 
dation of the California constitution, and having expressed his abhor- 
rence of the whole series of movements, which led to its adoption by the 
people in that country, he should not further allude to the President or 
Cabinet in that connection. 

A new character had presented himself, as one of the champions of 
this new and extraordinary political movement. He alluded to General 
Cass, the late Democratic candidate for the Presidency. That distin- 
guished gentleman had redeemed his pledge, and the pledge of his 
friends, on the subject of the Wilmot proviso. He had spoken against 
it. He had expressed his determination not to vote for it. With thii^ 
he was satisfied ; he would go further, and say, that the speech, so fai 
as it related to the proviso, challenged his admiration and excited his 
gratitude. It was replete with sound views, eloquently and happily ex- 
pressed. And no one could read it attentively without conceding to its 
author great ability. If the distinguished gentleman had closed his 
speech with his argument against the proviso, there would not have 
been a man in all the country more willing than himself to award him 
the highest honors. But the speech was marred by the expression of 
opinions, in its closing paragraphs, to which he (Mr. B.) and the south- 
ern people generally would dissent. General Cass had (if Mr. B. cor- 
rectly understood him) avowed his opinion to be, that the people of the 
territories have the right to exclude slavery ; and he was understood to 
sustain the action of the people in California in forming a state govern- 
ment. Against all these parts of the speech of General Cass, he (Mr. 
B.) entered his solemn protest. He felt bound to do this, because in 
the late presidential canvass he had, as the friend of General Cass, 
given a different interpretation to his views, as foreshadowed in the 
Nicholson letter. True, he had not done this without some misgivings, 
at first, of its correctness. But gentlemen nearer the person of General 
Cass than himself had interpreted the Nicholson letter to mean, that 
when the people of a territory were duly authorized to form a state con- 
stitution, they could then admit or exclude slavery at will, and whether 
they did the one thing or the other was not a matter to be questioned by 
Congress. He now conceded, as he had done in the presidential can- 
vass, that whenever a people duly authorized to form a state constitu- 
tion, have exercised this authority and asked admission into the Union, 
it is not properly a subject of inquiry whether their constitution admits 
or excludes slavery from the proposed state. But he understood Gene- 
ral Cass as going further than this — to the extent of giving to the people 

of the territories the right to exclude slavery during their territorial 
12 



178 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

existence^ and indeed before government of any sort had been established 
by Congress. He understood the doctrine as advanced by General 
Cass to be, that the occupants of the soil where no government existed 
— as in New Mexico, California, Deseret, &c. — had the right to exclude 
slavery ; and against this doctrine he raised his humble voice ; and 
though he might stand alone, without one other southern representative 
to sustain him, he would protest against it to the last. 

In the late presidential canvass, men of all parties had assailed this 
doctrine. The Whigs charged General Cass with entertaining these 
views, and the Democrats had vindicated him against the charge. The 
doctrine was universally denounced by men of all parties in the South ; 
and now we were startled with the intelligence that General Cass and 
General Taylor both approve it. For himself, no earthly consideration 
should keep him silent on such a question. No consideration personal 
to himself — no party ties nor political obligations, should seal his lips, 
when his country was about to be betrayed and sacrificed. He had de- 
nounced this doctrine before his constituents, he now denounced it before 
the House. He would not consume time, and prevent other gentlemen 
from speaking, by going into an argument on the subject. He had felt 
it due to his own position — to the cause of truth and justice, to make 
known at the first convenient moment, that what he condemned in 
General Taylor he equally condemned in General Cass; and having 
done this, he was satisfied. 



LETTER TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 

Fellow-Citizens : I feel impelled, by a strong sense of duty, to ad- 
dress to you this communication. If it shall seem to you more appro- 
priate that I should have delivered the sentiments which follow, in the 
form of a speech in the House of Representatives, I reply, that the 
difficulty of obtaining the floor interposes at all times serious obstacles to 
that mode of address. At this period of excitement, when events of the 
greatest consequence are pursuing each other in rapid succession, it ap- 
pears to me neither wise nor safe to risk the doubtful chances of an early 
opportunity of addressing you through the ordinary medium of a congres- 
sional speech. 

Events of the utmost magnitude are transpiring at the seat of the 
national government. In these events you have a deep interest, and I 
would not leave you a single day in ignorance of my views, or in doubt 
as to the manner in which I mean to discharge the high and important 
trusts which your partiality has devolved upon me. 

It is well known to you, that the people in California, following the 
lead of General Riley, an officer of the United States army stationed in 
that country, took upon themselves, during the last summer, the respon- 
sible task of forming a state constitution, and setting up a state govern- 
ment in that territory. 

This proceeding has been extensively criticised, and very generally 



LETTER TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 179 

condemned, as altogether anomalous and irregular. It is no part of my 
present purpose to follow up these criticisms. That the whole proceeding 
•was irregular and in total disregard of the rights of the South, is beyond 
dispute. That it was basely fraudulent, I have ever believed, and do 
now believe. That the people in that country were prompted to the 
course pursued by them, by the secret spies and agents sent out from 
Washington, I have never doubted for a single moment. That they were 
induced to insert the "Wilmot proviso," in their so-called state constitu- 
tion, by assurances held out to them that such a course would facilitate 
their admission into the Union of these states, I as religiously believe as 
I do in the existence of an overruling Providence. 

Pursuing the idea that there had been illegitimate influences at work 
to produce particular results in California, I on two several occasions 
introduced into the House of Representatives resolutions directing a 
searching inquiry into all the facts. But the dominant power would 
give no countenance to my object. 

I have seen it stated in a letter written in California, and published 
in the Republic newspaper in this city, "that it was everywhere under- 
stood in that country, that the President desired the people of California 
to settle the slavery question for themselves." I endeavored to bring 
the public mind to bear on this point, and in a card published in the 
Republic, I inquired " how it came to be everywhere thus understood?" 
but no response Avas ever made to the inquiry. The semi-official declara- 
tion, however, quickened my suspicions that some one had spoken as by 
autliority for the President. 

Thomas Butler King, Esq., one of the President's agents in California, 
has repeatedly declared that the California Convention was held under 
the sanction of President Polk and Secretaries Buchanan and Marcy; 
and that it was to these functionaries General Riley made allusion when 
he said to the people in that country that he was acting in compliance 
with the views of the President, and the Secretaries of War and of State. 
Mr. Polk is dead, and the two ex-secretaries positively deny the truth 
of Mr. King's declaration. 

If General Riley stated officially to the people of California, on the 3d 
of June, 1849, the date of his proclamation, that the President, THE 
Secretary of War, and the Secretary of State approved his conduct — 
meaning thereby Mr. Polk, Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. Marcy — it was a 
fraud upon the people of California. The statement could only have 
been made with a view to give the highest official sanction to his conduct, 
and he knew perfectly well that all three of the gentlemen alluded to, 
were private citizens at the date of his proclamation. When he said the 
President, he meant to give the weight of presidential influence to his 
acts. He meant that the people should understand him as alluding to 
the man in power, and not to a retired gentleman and private citizen. 

Mr. King undertakes to prove that he is right in his declaration, and 
asserts that the steamer which carried him to California was the first 
arrival in that country after General Taylor's inauguration, and " that 
she conveyed the first intelligence that Congress had failed to provide a 
government for that territory ;'' and by way of giving point to his declara- 
tion in this respect, he asserts that he landed for the first time at San 
Francisco, on the 4th day of June ; that General Riley was then at Mon- 
terey, distant about one hundred and fifty miles, and that he (Mr. King) 



180 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

did not see him (Riley), or have any communication with him ; and that 
the prochimation, calling the California Convention, hore date June 3d, 
1849. Thus rendering it impossible, as he assumed, that said proclama- 
tion could have been based on information received from the present 
President and his Secretaries, through his (Mr. King's) arrival. Unfor- 
tunately for the accuracy of these statements and the legitimacy of the 
conclusions, General Riley commences his proclamation with the em- 
phatic declaration " that Congress had failed to provide a government 
for California;" and the inquiry at once arises, how, if Mr. King landed 
at San Francisco on the 4th of June, 1849, with the first intelligeyice of 
this failure on the part of Congress, could General Riley have known 
and proclaimed the important fact at Monterey, distant one hundred and 
fifty miles, on the 3d of June of that year ? We see at once that it 
could not be so. 

President Polk and his cabinet could not have sent advice to Cali- 
fornia of this failure on the part of Congress ;. for it is historically true 
that the failure occurred in the very last hour of Mr. Polk's adminis- 
tration. 

Through some channel General Riley was advised that Congress had 
failed to provide a government for California, and this after President 
Taylor came into power. I do not say that Mr. King was this channel, 
but I do say that from the same medium through which he derived the 
information that Congress had failed to provide a government, he may, 
and prohahly did, receive also the views of the President and his cabinet, 
and hence he was enabled to speak as he did wiih positive certainty of 
the one and of the other. 

"You are fully possessed," says the Secretary of State, Mr. Clayton, 
to Mr. King, in a letter bearing date of April 3, 1849, " You are fully 
possessed of the President's views, and can \,\i\\ propriety suggest to the 
people of California the adoption of measures best calculated to give them 
efiect. These measures must, of course, originate solely with themselves." 
Mr. King, then, was informed that he could with propriety suggest the 
adoption of measures to carry out the President's views, he having been 
fully possessed of those views. But these measures must originate with 
the people ! Beautiful ! Mr. King is sent to California to suggest to 
the people the adoption of measures to carry out the President's views, 
but these measures must originate with the people ! And more beau- 
tiful still, Mr. King comes home, after disburdening himself of the vicAvs 
■whereof he was "fully possessed," and gravely tells the country he did 
not go to California on a political mission, and had nothing to do with the 
local affairs of that country ; and this, too, after he was denounced in 
the convention as the President's emissary. I suspect Mr. King could 
tell how it came to be " everywhere understood in California that the 
President wanted the people to settle the slavery question for them- 
selves." 

I have thought proper to present these facts and deductions, for the 
purpose of showing you that mine are no idle suspicions. When I say 
that, in my opinion, a great fraud has been perpetrated, I want you to 
understand that there is some foundation for my opinion. 

The action of Congress, I am free to adnnt, may have had much to do 
in fixing the sentiment in the mind of the President and of the Califor- 
nians, that no territorial government would be allowed which did not 



LETTER TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 181 

contain the Wilmot proviso ; and judging from the temper constantly 
displayed in urging this odious measure at all times and in all seasons, 
it was, I grant, a rational conclusion that no government asked for or 
established by the people would be tolerated unless slavery was prohi- 
bited ; but was this a sufficient reason why the President or his agents, 
or even the people of California, should trample under foot the rights of 
the South ? We had our rights in that country, and they ought to have 
been respected ; I risk nothing in saying that they would have been, had 
we been the stronger party. Our fault consisted in our weakness, and 
for this we were sacrificed. 

It is said, I know, that California is not suited to slave labor — that 
the soil, climate, the very elements themselves, are _ opposed to it. 
Slave labor is never more profitably employed than in mining ; and. 
you may judge whether slaves could be advantageously introduced into 
that country, when I inform you, on the authority of the debates of 
their convention, that an able-bodied negro is worth in California from 
two to six thousand dollars per annum. 

I pass over the studied and systematic resistance which the California 
admissionists have constantly and steadily interposed against all inves- 
tigation, with this single remark — " that the wicked flee when no man 
pursueth, hut the righteous are as bold as a lion." 

Immediately after the assembling of the present Congress, it became 
apparent that the admission of California into the Union as a state was 
to become the great question of the session ; and it was palpable from 
the beginning, that there was a large majority in favor of it. The Pres- 
ident was not slow in taking his position. He brought the subject to 
the favorable notice of Congress in his annual message, and very soon 
after, in a special communication, he earnestly recommended it to our 
favorable consideration. The fearful odds of the President, the Cabinet, 
and a congressional majority, was arrayed against us ; but, nothing 
daunted, a few of us, relying on the justice of our cause, and placing 
our trust in the intelligence, virtue, patriotism, and indomitable firmness 
and courage of our constituents, resolved to resist it. 

To lay before you the grounds of that resistance, and to lay bare the 
sophistry and double-dealing of the friends of this measure, are among 
the chief aims of this letter. 

A large class of those who advocate the immediate introduction of 
California into the Union, place their advocacy on the ground that the 
people have a right in all cases to govern themselves, and to regulate 
their domestic concerns in their own way. It becomes important to un- 
derstand the meaning of declarations like these, and to ascertain the 
extent to which such doctrines may be rightfully extended. 

I admit the right of self-government ; I admit that every people mny 
regulate their domestic aifairs in their own way ; I freely and fully 
admit the doctrine that a people finding themselves in a country without 
laws, may make laws for themselves, and to suit themselves. But in 
doing this they must take care not to infringe the rights of the owners 
and proprietors of the soil. If, for example, one hundred or one thou- 
sand American citizens should find themselves thrown on an island be- 
lono-ino; to Great Britain, uninhabited and without laws, such citizens, 
from the very necessity of their position, would have a right to make 
laws for themselves. But in doing this, they would have no right to 



182 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

say to her Majesty's subjects in Scotland, you may come to this island 
with your property, and to her Irish subjects, you shall not come with 
your property. They would have no right to set the proprietors at deJS- 
ance, or to make insulting discriminations between proprietors holding 
one species of property and those owning another species of property. 
No such power would be at all necessary to their self-government, and 
any attempt to exercise it would justly be regarded as an impertinent 
attempt to assume the supreme power, when in fact they were mere 
tenants at will. 

If the people of California, who had been left, by the unwise and 
grossly unjust NON-ACTION of Congress, without law and without govern- 
ment, had confined themselves to making their own laws and regulating 
their own domestic affairs in their own way, I certainly never should 
have raised my voice against their acts. But when they go further, and 
assume the right to say what shall be the privileges of the owners and 
proprietors of the soil — when they take upon themselves to say to the 
fifteen Northern States, your citizens may come here with their property, 
and to the fifteen Southern States, your citizens shall not come here with 
their property, they assume, in my judgment, a power which does not 
belong to them, and perform an act to which the South, if she would 
maintain her rights, ought not to submit. 

Attempts have been made to draw a parallel between the conduct of 
our revolutionary fathers, who claimed the right to legislate independent 
of the British crown, and that of the Californians, who have assumed 
to set up an independent government of their own. When our fathers 
set up an independent government, they called it revolution ; and if the 
people in California set up a like government, I know of no reason why 
their conduct shall not in like manner be denominated revolutionary. 
Our fathers revolted and took the consequences ; California has a right 
to do the same thing ; but that she has any other than a revolutionary 
right, I utterly deny. 

Very distinguished men have assumed the position, that the rights of 
sovereignty over the territory reside in the people of the territory, even 
during their territorial existence. Let us test the soundness of this 
theory by a few practical applications. The expression " the people of 
a territory" is one of very uncertain signification as to numbers. It 
may mean one hundred thousand, or it may mean one thousand or one 
hundred. The question naturally presents itself, when does this right of 
sovereignty commence ? Is it with the first man who reaches the terri- 
tory ? May he prescribe rules and regulations for those who come after 
him ? or must there be a thousand or fifty thousand, or a greater or a 
less number, before the rights of sovereignty attach ? 

Perhaps we are told that the sovereignty begins when the people 
assemble to make laws. Very well ; let us put this theory into practical 
operation. Ten thousand French emigrants have settled, let us suppose, 
at the base of the Rocky Mountains, without the limits of any organ- 
ized state or territory of the United States, and they are without 
government or laws. They make laws for themselves, and you acqui- 
esce ; they set up a government for themselves, and you admit their 
right ; they claim the sovereignty over the territory and set up an inde- 
pendent state government, and you admit their power to do so. You 
expect them to ask admission into the Union, but the new sovereignty 



LETTER TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 183 

says no, we prefer independence, or we prefer to become an integral 
part of the French republic. What will you do under such circum- 
stances ? Can you force her to abandon her acknowledged indepen- 
dence ? Can you force her into the Union against her will ? What ! 
require a sovereign to pursue your will and not her own ? This would 
indeed be revolution. 

If California is in fact, as she is admitted by some to be in theory, 
an independent sovereignty, I see nothing which is to prevent her re- 
mainino; out of the Union if she elects to do so. I see nothing which 
may prevent her, if she chooses, allying herself to any other nation or 
country. I know of no right by which this government may take from 
her the independence, the sovereignty which she now possesses, if indeed 
she be a state without the Union. 

The tenure by which we hold our territorial possession is indeed most 
fragile, if this doctrine of territorial sovereignty can be maintained. We 
may expend millions of treasure, and pour out rivers of our purest and 
best blood in the acquisition of territories, only to see them taken posses- 
sion of, and ourselves turned out, by the first interloper who may chance 
to plant his foot upon them. 

I am always glad of an opportunity to do the fullest justice to a polit- 
ical opponent, and in this spirit I beg leave to say, that, in my judg- 
ment, Mr. Clay, in a late speech in the Senate, took the true ground 
on this subject. He denied that California was a state, or that she 
could become so out of the Union. He maintained the right of the 
people to self-government, but denied the validity or binding force of 
their written constitution, until the state should be admitted into the 
Union. Will the reader recollect this, as I shall have occasion to use it 
in another connection. 

Let us pause for a moment to consider the honesty and sincerity of 
purpose with which the lofty pretension has been set up in certain quar- 
ters, that the people have a right to regulate, arrange, and mould their 
institutions to suit themselves. In the early part of last year, the 
people inhabiting a large portion of our unoccupied possessions in what 
was then known as New Mexico and California, met in convention and 
framed a state constitution, giving the name of Deseret to their 
country. They defined their boundaries, and included within their 
limits a large extent of Pacific coast. Their constitution was in exerj 
element essentially republican. They sent their agent to Washington, 
with a modest request that the constitution thus formed should be 
accepted, and the state of Deseret admitted into the Union. How 
this application was treated we shall presently see. Later in the same 
year, the people of New Mexico formed a territorial government, and 
sent their delegate to Washington to present their wishes, and, if per- 
mitted, to represent their interests. In the summer of the same year, 
and several months after the Deseret convention, the Californians held 
their convention. They extended their boundaries so as to monopolize the 
whole Pacific coast, in total disregard of the prior action of Deseret. 
And then, in contempt of the modest example of her two neighbors, she 
sends, not an agent or a delegate to Washington, with a civil request, . 
but she sends up two senators and two representatives, with a bold 
demand for instantaneous admission into the Union. 

What followed ? The President made two earnest appeals to Con- 



184 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

gress to admit California, and lie told us plainly to leave the others to 
their fate. Not only does he fail to give them a friendly salutation, but 
he in truth turns from them in scorn. Not a word does he utter in their 
behalf, or in defence of their independent conduct. Their modesty 
failed to commend them to his paternal notice. 

In Congress, and throughout the country, a general outcry is now 
heard in favor of California. Everywhere throughout the length and 
breadth of the land, the cry of California, glorious California, is heard. 
It comes to us from the east and from the west, from the north and (I 
am pained to say) in some instances from the south. If any man has 
dared to interpose the slightest objection to the immediate admission of 
California — if any one has hesitated about yielding to California all that 
she so boldly demands, he has been denounced, black-balled, hooted at, 
and almost driven from society. Meantime no voice has been heard in 
defence of the rights of New Mexico and Deseret. They, too, assume 
to settle their own affairs in their own way. Yet no whisper of encour- 
agement and hope greets their modest agent and delegate at Washing- 
ton. The great national voice is engaged to sing and shout for Cali- 
fornia. Why has this been so? Why this marked distinction between 
these several parties ? The people, we are told, have a right to act for 
themselves. California acted for herself, Deseret for herself, and New 
Mexico for herself ; and yet, amid the din and clamor in favor of Cali- 
fornia, we have lost sight of her more retiring and modest sisters. Why 
is this ? I'll tell you, fellow-citizens. Deseret and New Mexico did 
not insult the South by excluding slavery. With a becoming modesty 
they were silent on this subject. California, influenced by unwise 
counsels, flung defiance in your teeth, scoffed at your rights, and boldly 
threw herself into the arms of the North. Here is the secret of all 
this boiling and bubbling in favor of California, and here, too, may be 
found the end of the great doctrine that the people may settle the 
slavery question for themselves. If they settle it against the South it 
is well, and if they do not it is no settlement at all. 

Ah ! but we are told there is a vast difference between these terri- 
tories; New Mexico and Utah have but few inhabitants, and California 
has many thousand — some say one hundred thousand and some say two 
hundred thousand. I do not understand that because a people are fewer 
in number, that therefore they have no political rights, whilst a greater 
number may have every right. But how stands the case in regard to 
these hundreds of thousands of people in California? We all know 
that the emigration to that country has been confined to hardy male 
adults, robust men. In most cases their families and friends have been 
left in the states, to which, in four cases out of five, they themselves 
have intended to return. At the elections last summer they voted about 
twelve thousand, and later in the fall, on the important question of 
adopting a state constitution, with the ballot-box wide open and free for 
every vote, they polled less than thirteen thousand. I should like to 
know where the balance of this two hundred thousand were. At least one 
hundred and fifty thousand of them, I suspect, were never in the country, 
and the rest regarded the whole thing as a ridiculous farce, with which 
they had nothing to do. And this is the state and these the people who 
have excluded slavery, and sent two senators and two representatives to 
Washington. 



LETTER TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 185 

You will have no difficulty in determining in your own minds that I am 
opposed to allowing the people of the territories to settle this question, 
either for us or against us. It is a matter with which they have no con- 
cern. The states are equals and have equal rights, and whatever tends 
to impair or break down that equality, always has and always shall en- 
counter my stern and inflexible opposition. 

My position in reference to congressional action on this subject is 
easily explained. I am for non-intervention — total, entire, unqualified 
non-intervention. Leave the people of all the states free to go with 
their property of whatever kind, to the territories, without let and with- 
out hindrance, and I am satisfied. But this I must say, that whenever 
Cono-ress undertakes to give protection to 'pro'perty in the territories, on 
the high seas, or anywhere else, there must be no insulting discrimina- 
tion between slave property and any other species of property. To say 
that Congress may protect the northern man's goods in California, but 
that Congress shall not protect the southern man's slaves, i% interven- 
tion. It is intervening for the Avorst ends, and in the most insulting 
manner. 

We have been told, fellow-citizens, that we once said the people of a 
territory, when they come to make a state constitution, might settle the 
slave question for themselves, and that we have now abandoned that 
ground. Not so — I speak for myself. I have always maintained, and 
I maintain to-day, that the people of a territory, when duly authorized 
to form a state constitution, may settle this and all other questions for 
themselves and according to their own inclinations. But was California 
duly authorized ? Where did she get her authority ? We have been 
told that she got it from the Almighty. This is very well if it is so. 
But it would be more satisfactory to me to know that she got it from the 
proprietors of the soil, and that her action had been subordinate to the 
Federal Constitution. 

I have no inclination to discuss this point at length. Whenever it 
can be shown that California has been subjected to the same ordeal 
through which Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida, and other slaveholding 
states have been compelled to pass, I w^ill, if in Congress, vote for her 
admission into the Union, without a why or wherefore, as concerns 
slavery. But it is asking of me a little too much to expect that I shall 
vote for her admission, under all the remarkable circumstances attend- 
ing her application, until she has passed this ordeal. 

If it shall be shown that I am getting a fair equivalent for surrender- 
ing your rights in California, you may reasonably expect me, in your 
name, to favor a compromise. The great national mind wants repose, 
and I for one am ready for any arrangement which may aff"ord a reason- 
able augury of a happy adjustment of our differences. This brings me 
to a brief review of Mr. Clay's so called compromise scheme. 

The leading bill presented by Mr. Clay from " the Committee of 
Thirteen" contains three distinct and substantive propositions : First, 
the admission of California. In this, as in every other scheme of settle- 
ment tendered to the South, California, in all her length and breadth, 
stands first. Secondly, we are offered territorial governments for New 
Mexico and Utah (Deseret that was), zvithoiit the Wilmot proviso ; and 
thirdly, we have a proposition to dismember Texas, by cutting off enough 
of her northern possessions to make four states as large as Mississippi, 



186 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

and for the privilege of doing this we are to pay millions of 

dollars. The suggestions for filling this blank have varied from five to 
fifteen millions of dollars. 

I have already suggested some reasons why the admission of Cali- 
fornia, as an independent proposition, ought not, in my judgment, to re- 
ceive your sanction. I now propose to inquire Avhether the union of 
these three measures in one bill makes the Avhole, as a unit, more worthy 
of your consideration and support. All the objections to the admission 
of California stand out in the same force and vigor in Mr. Clay's bill 
as in all former propositions for her admission. We are asked to make 
the same sacrifice of feeling and of principle which we have so often 
and so long protested we would not make — unless indeed it shall be 
shown that we are getting a fair equivalent for these sacrifices. Mr. 
Clay has himself told us, in effect, that we were making these sacrifices. 
He has told us, as I remarked to you in another place, that California 
was not a state, and could not become so out of the Union. That, in 
truth, her constitution had no binding force, as a constitution, until the 
state was admitted into the Union. The constitution of California con- 
tains the anti-slavery clause, the " Wilmot proviso." But the constitu- 
tion is a dead letter, so far as we are concerned. It has no vitality, no 
binding eff'ect until the state is admitted. Congress admits her, and by 
the act of admission puts the proviso in force — gives it activity and life. 
Who, then, but Congress is responsible for the active, operative " proviso" 
— for that proviso which excludes you from the country ? Congress and 
Congress alone is responsible. You can now understand more fully 
what I meant, when I signed a letter to his excellency the governor, 
saying, " that the admission of California was equivalent to the adop- 
tion of the Wilmot proviso." The northern people understand this, and 
to a man they are for her admission. 

The question now is, are we offered any adequate consideration for 
making this sacrifice of feeling and of principle ? This is a question 
worthy of the most serious and critical examination. 

By the terms of the resolutions, annexing Texas to the United 
States, it is expressly provided " that such states as may be formed out 
of that portion of her territory lying south of the parallel of 36° 30' north 
latitude, shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as 
the people of each state asking admission may desire." And it is as 
expressly stipulated, that "in such state or states as may be formed 
out of said territory lying north of that line slavery shall be pro- 
hibited." In pursuance of these resolutions Texas came into the Union. 
The South consented to this arrangement, and to-day, as at all former 
periods, I am ready to abide by it. 

Examine these resolutions, and what do we find? A clear and dis- 
tinct recognition of the title of Texas to the country up to 36° 30', as 
slave territory, for it is stipulated that the people may determine for 
themselves, at a proper time, whether slavery shall or shall not exist in 
all the country below that line. Nay more, the rights of Texas above 
this line are admitted ; for it is expressly provided that in the state or 
states to be formed out of the territory north of 36° 30', slavery sbill 
be prohibited, but not until such state or states ask admission into ♦no 
Union. We have, then, the clearest possible recognition of the title of 



LETTER TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 187 

Texas up to 36 J° as slave territory, and to sufficient territory above that 
line to make one or more states. 

Now, what do we hear from the North ? That Texas never had any 
just claim to any part of this territory ; that it always did, and does ' 
now belong to New Mexico. But, as Texas is a young sister, and one 

with whom we should not deal harshly, we will give her millions of 

dollars for her imaginary claim. Mr. Benton, in the exuberance of 
his liberality, offers fifteen millions of dollars ; and other gentlemen, 
less ardent, propose smaller sums. But our present dealing is with Mr. 
Clay's plan for a compromise. 

If the reader has a map, I beg that he. will first trace the line of thir- 
ty-six degrees and thirty minutes, north latitude ; and then fix his eye on 
the north-eastern boundary of Texas at the point where the one-hundredth 
parallel of longitude crosses the Red River ; and, from this point, run a 
direct line to a point twenty miles above El Paso, on the B-io Grande ; 
and between these two lines, he will have the slave territory which Mr. 
Clay's compromise proposes to sell out. It will be seen, on comparison, 
that this territory is nearly twice as large as the state of Mississippi. 
Whether five or fifteen millions of dollars are given for it, it is needless 
to say Ave shall have to pay more than our due proportion of the 
money. 

To me, it is not a pleasant thing to sell out slave territory, and pay 
for it myself; and I confess that this much of the proposed bargain has • 
not made the admission of California a whit more palatable to me. 

I say nothing of Texas above 36° 30' ; that country was virtually 
surrendered to abolition by the terms of the Texas annexation. If 
Texas thinks proper to give it or sell it to the Free-Soilers, in advance 
of the time appointed for its surrender, I make no objection. But all 
the South has a direct political interest in Texas below this line of 36° 
30'; and I do not mean to surrender your interest without a fair 
equivalent. 

What is to be the destiny of this territory, if it is thus sold out, and 
what its institutions ? It is to become an integral part of New Mexico, 
and I risk nothing in saying it will be dedicated to free soil. Its insti- 
tutions will be anti-slavery. If the character of the country was not 
to undergo a radical change in this respect, or if this change was not 
confidently anticipated, we all know that the northern motive for ' 
making this purchase would lose its existence. As the country now 
stands, it is protected by the annexation resolutions against all congres- 
sional interference with the question of slavery. Transfer it to NeAV 
Mexico, and we expose it to the dangerous intermeddling which has so 
long unhappily afiiicted that and all our territorial possessions. 

This brings me to the only remaining proposition in Mr. Clay's covi- 
promise bill — that to establish territorial governments for New Mexico 
and UtaJi, withont the "Wilmot proviso." If this were an independent 
proposition, tendered in good faith, and accepted by the North with a 
fixed purpose to abide by it, I have no hesitation in saying it would 
receive my cordial support. I repeat what I have often said, that whilst 
I shall resist the exclusion of slavery by congressional action, I have no 
purpose or design to force or fasten it upon any country through the 
agency of Congress. Whilst I demand that Congress shall not oppose 
our entrance into the territories with our slaves, I do not ask it to assist • 



188 ALBERT G. BROAVN. 

US in going there. All I ask is, that we may be treated as equals — that 
no insulting discrimination shall be drawn between southern and northern 
people — between southern property and northern property. 

How is this proposition regarded by the northern men to whom it is 
tendered, and by whom it may be accepted ? The spirit in which it is 
accepted is a part of the res gesta ; and I therefore press the inquiry, 
in wlaat light is the proposition regarded ? — in what spirit will it be ac- 
cepted, if it is accepted at all, by northern men ? When we shall have 
answered this inquiry, it will be seen whether there is leaven enough in 
this little lump to leaven the whole loaf. 

Mr. Webster is positive that we can never introduce slaves into the 
territory. "The laws of God," he thinks, will for ever forbid it. He, 
and those who go with him, will not vote for the " proviso," because it is 
unnecessary/. They are opposed, uncompromisingly opposed, to the 
introduction of slaves into the territories ; and they are ready to do any- 
thing that may be found necessary to keep them out. It is easy to see 
what they will do, if we commence introducing our slaves. They will at 
once say, "the laws of God" having failed us, we must try what virtue 
there is in the " Wilmot proviso." Mr. Clay and those who follow him 
"are quite certain that "we are already excluded by the laws of Mexico." 
They, too, are opposed to the introduction of slavery into the territories, 
and stand ready to see it excluded. The northern men who stand out 
against the compromise^ insist, and will continue to insist, on the Wilmot 
proviso, as the only certain guarantee that slavery will be permanently 
excluded. All, all are opposed to our going in with our slaves, and all are 
ready to employ whatever means may be necessary to keep us out. I 
assert the fact distinctly and emphatically, that we are told every day 
that if we attempt to introduce our slaves at any time into New Mexico 
or Utah, there will be an immediate application of the " Wilmot proviso," 
to keep us ont. Mark you, the proposition is to give territorial govern- 
ments to New Mexico and Utah. These are but congressional acts, and 
may be altered, amended, explained, or repealed, at pleasure. 

No one here understands that we are entering into a compact, and no 
northern man votes for this compromise, with the expectation or under- 
standing; that we are to take our slaves into the territories. Whatever 
additional legislation may be found necessary hereafter to effect our 
perfect exclusion, we are given distinctly to understand will be resorted to. 

But there is yet another difficulty to be overcome, a more serious 
obstacle than either " the laws of God," as Mr. Webster understands 
them, or "the laws of Mexico," as understood by Mr. Clay. In regard 
to the first, I think Mr. Webster is wholly mistaken, and if he is not, I 
am willing to submit; and in regard to the second, I take the ground, 
that when we conquered the Mexican people, we conquered their laws. 
But Mr. Clay's bill contains a provision as prohibitory as the " proviso" 
itself. The territorial legislature is denied the right to legislate at all 
in respect to African slavery. If a master's slave absconds, no law can 
be passed by which he may recover him. If he is maimed, he can have 
no damages for the injury. If he is decoyed from his service, or har- 
bored by a vicious neighbor, he is without remedy. A community of 
slaveholders may desire to make laws adapted to their peculiar wants 
in this respect, but Congress, by this compromise of Mr. Clay's, denies 
them the right to do so. They shall not legislate in regard to African 



LETTER TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 189 

slavery. What now becomes of the hypocritical cant about the right 
of the people to regulate their own affairs in their own way ? 

With these facts before us, it becomes us to inquire how much we give 
and how much we take, in voting for Mr. Clay's bill. We admit Cali- 
fornia, and, being once in, the question is settled so far as she is con- 
cerned. We can never get her out by any process short of a dissolution 
of the Union. We give up a part of pro-slavery Texas, and we give it 
beyond redemption and for ever. Our part of the bargain is binding. 
Our follies may rise up and mock us in after times, but we can never 
escape their effects. This much we give ; now what do we take ? We 
get a government for New Mexico and Utah, without the Wilmot proviso, 
but with a declaration that we are excluded already '■''hy the laws of God ' 
and the Mexican nation,'" or get it with a prohibition against territorial 
legislation on the subject of slavery, and with a distinct threat constantly 
hanging over us, that if we attempt to introduce slaves against these 
prohibitions, the " Wilmot proviso" will be instantly applied for our 
more effectual exclusion. 

Such is the compromise. Such is the proposed bargain. Can you, 
fellow-citizens, expect me to vote for it ? Will you demand of your 
representative to assist in binding you hand and foot, and turning you 
over to the tender mercies of the Free-Soilers ? 

It is said, we can get nothing better than this. But is that any suffi- 
cient reason why we should vote for it ourselves ? If I am beset with 
robbers, who are resolved on assassination, must I needs lay violent 
hands on myself? or if my friend is in extremis, must I strangle him? 
We can get nothing better, forsooth ! In God's name, can we get any- ' 
thing Avorse ? It is said that if we reject this, they will pass the " Wil- 
mot proviso." Let them pass it; it will not be more galling than this. 
If the proviso fails to challenge our respect, it at least rises above our 
contempt. If it ever passes, it will be the Act of the American Con- 
gress — of men learned in the law, and familiar with the abstruse 
readings of the Constitution. It will be done deliberately, and after ' 
full reflection. It will not be done by adventurers on the shores of the 
Pacific, who seem to know but little of our Constitution or laws, and to 
care less for our rights. 

I have heard it said that it will be dangerous to reject the application 
of California for admission into the Union. Already she is threatening 
to set up for herself, and if we reject her, she will withdraw her applica- 
tion and establish herself as an independent republic on the Pacific. 
Let her try it. We have been told that if the South refuse to submit 
to the galling insults and outrageous wrongs of the North, the President 
will call out the naval and military poAver of the nation, and reduce us 
to submission. When California asserts her independence, and sets up 
her republic on the Pacific, we shall see how quick the President will be 
to use this same military and naval force, in bringing her back to her 
allegiance. These threats have no terrors for me. 

As I could respect the reckless and bold robber who, unmasked, 
presents his pistol and demands my money or my life, above the petty 
but expert pickpocket, who looks complaisantly in my face while he 
steals my purse, — so can I respect the dashing and dare-devil impudence 
of the Wilmot proviso, which robs the South, and takes the responsi- 
bility, above the little, low, cunning, sleight-of-hand scheme, which robs 



190 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

US just as effectually, and leaves us wondering how tlie trick was per- 
formed. 

So long as I remain in your service, fellow-citizens, I will represent 
you faithfully, according to my best judgment. In great emergencies 
like this, I feel the need of your counsel and support. It would give 
me pain, if any important vote of mine should fail to meet your appro- 
bation. Whilst I shall never follow blindly any man's lead, nor suffer 
myself to be awed by any general outcry, I confess myself not insensible 
to the applause of my countrymen. In a great crisis like the present, 
men must act, responsibility must be taken, and he is not fit to be 
trusted who stops in the discharge of his high duties to count his per- 
sonal costs. 

I cannot vote for Mr. Clay's compromise bill. With very essential 
changes and modifications, I might be reconciled to its support. ^ These 
I have no hope of obtaining, and I therefore expect to vote against it. 
Like the fatal Missouri compromise, it gives up everything and obtains 
nothing ; and like that and all other compromises with the North, it will 
be observed, and its provisions maintained, just so long as it suits the 
views of northern men to observe and maintain them, and then they 
will be unscrupulously abandoned. 

It will give me great pleasure to find myself sustained by my consti- 
tuents, in the votes I intend to give. My head, my heart, my every 
thought and impulse admonish me that I am right, and I cannot doubt 
or hesitate. 

Your fellow-citizen, 

A. G. Brown. 

Washington City, May 13, 1850. 






ADMISSION OF CALIFORNIA. 

On the 13th of June, 1850, in the House of Representatives, an amendment to the 
bill admitting California was rejected, to the effect that thereafter it should not 
constitute an olyection to the admission of a state lying south of the Missouri 
Compromise line that her constitution tolerated slavery. Mr. Brown, of Missis- 
sippi, renewed the amendment, ^roybrma, and said: 

I LONG since made up my mind that I would introduce no proposition 
of my own, nor vote for any other man's proposition, Avhich did not give 

" ample justice to my section. My determination was not formed without 
consideration. The whole ground had been duly examined, and my 
judgment was based on a solemn conviction, that no proposition which 
did not inflict positive injury on the South had the least chance of favor 

' in this House. If I had ever been brought to doubt the correctness of 
this judgment, the vote just taken would have convinced me beyond all 
dispute that I was right. 

Day by day our ears are filled with the cry of " compromise !" " ad- 
justment ! !" We have been invoked time and again to come forward 
and settle this angry dispute, on terms equitable and just to all sections 
of the confederacy. We have been admonished, in high-sounding phra- 



ik 



ADMISSION OF CALIFORNIA. 191 

seology, that to the people of the states, when forming their constitu- 
tions, belonged the duty and the right of settling for themselves the 
question of slavery or no slavery. Some, we have been told, fanatical 
and violent, would repudiate this doctrine ; but the great body of the 
moderate men of the North, of all parties, we have been assured, had 
planted themselves on this broad, republican platform. Now, sir, what 
have we seen ? The question has been taken on a proposition declaring 
that it shall hereafter be no objection to the admission of a state lying 
south of 36° 30' that her constitution tolerated or prohibited slavery, 
and this proposition has been voted down — voted down, sir, by a strictly 
sectional division — all the southern members voting for it, and all the 
northern members, with but one honorable exception, voting against it. 

Mr. Harris, of Illinois. Three or four. 

Mr. Brown. I saw but one — Mr. McClernand. There may have 
been three or four. It may have been that five or six threw up their 
hats and cried " God save the country !" 

Mr. BissELL. I was not in my seat. I should have voted for it 
with great pleasure. 

Mr. Harris, of Illinois. I voted for it. 

Mr. Brown. It may be that five or six voted for the proposition. 
But what of that ? Where was the great body of the northern members, 
Whigs and Democrats ? They were just where I have always predicted 
they would be when it came to voting. They Avere found repudiating 
the very doctrine on which they ask us to admit California — the doctrine 
of self-government in regard to slavery. 

There could be no mistaking the intention of this vote. The gentle- 
man from Kentucky [Mr. Marshall], in a speech of marked emphasis, 
had called on the South to cease debating, and let us have a vote — a 
vote which should test the question, whether northern members were 
prepared to assert the doctrine, that under no circumstances should any 
other slaveholding state enter this Union. The debate did cease in 
obedience to that appeal, the vote was taken, and the result is before 
us. And now, sir, in reference to that result I have a word to say. It 
explodes at one dash, the holloAv-hearted and hypocritical pretension 
that this question was to be left to the people, when they came to form 
their respective constitutions. It verifies what I have said here and 
elsewhere, that this doctrine was a miserable cheat, an infamous impo- 
sition, a gross fraud upon the South. If the people, as in the case of 
California, make an anti-slavery constitution, the doctrine is applied 
and the state is admitted ; but if any other state shall offer a pro-slavery 
constitution, we are given by this vote distinctly to understand, that 
such state, her constitution, and this doctrine, will all be trampled under 
foot together. 

I want my constituents and the country to see to what end we are to 
come at last. The bold stand is taken by this vote that not another 
slave state is to be admitted, no odds what her constitution may say. 

I take ground with the eloquent gentleman from Georgia [Mr. 
Toombs], and now declare, that if this is to become the ruling principle 
of the North — if we are thus to crouch at the footstool of power — if we 
are to be brought down from our high position as equals to become 
your dependants — if we are to live for ever at your mercy, rejoicing in 
your smiles and shrinking from your frown — if indeed, sir, it has come 



x92 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

to this, that the Union is to be used for these accursed purposes, then, 
sir, by the God of my fathers, I am against the Union ; and so help me 
Heaven, I will dedicate the remnant of my life to its dissolution. 

Men nay talk of adjustments, letters may be written, speeches may 
be made, newspapers printed to glorify the Union — but, sir, if this is 
the Union you would glorify, it is base-born slander to say the South is 
for it. If we are to have a Union of equals, it will for ever rest upon 
all our hearts and all our hands — it will be eternal. But if it is to be 
a Union of the tyrant and the serf, a Union of the monarch and the 
menial, a Union of the vulture and the lamb, then, sir, I warn gentle- 
men it will be a Union of perpetual strife. Say what you will, write 
what you will, speak what you will, think what you will, the South Avill 
wage eternal warfare upon such a Union. We will invoke with one 
voice the vengeance of Heaven upon such a Union — we will pray 
unceasingly to the God of our deliverance that he will send us a bolt 
from heaven to shiver the chain which thus binds us to tyranny and 
oppression. 



DELEGATE FEOM NEW MEXICO. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 19, 1850, ON THE AD- 
MISSION OF THE DELEGATE FROM NEW MEXICO IN ADVANCE OP 
HER TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION. 

Mr. Brown said he had taken no part in the debates on the question 
of admitting the delegate from New Mexico, nor did he intend to par- 
ticipate in this discussion at liny great length. 

The honorable gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Gentry] had an- 
nounced the principle which had governed his vote in favor of Mr. 
Smith, as a delegate from New Mexico, and had informed us that he 
should govern himself by the same principle in voting for Mr. Babbit, 
the delegate from Deseret. To the correctness of the honorable gentle- 
man's theory, Mr. B. made no sort of objection, and if the theory was 
applicable to the matter in hand, he should be found voting with the 
gentleman from Tennessee. 

The honorable gentleman says, it is a part of the early theory of our 
government, that, whenever you govern a people, you should grant them 
representation. No one could mistake the meaning of the gentleman. 
He meant to assimilate this case to that of our colonial forefathers, and 
to assume that, as they complained Avith justice of the British Crown for 
governing them without giving them representation, the people in New 
Mexico and Deseret may justly make the same complaint of us. The 
colonies were governed. The Crown sent them governors, secretaries, 
judges and tax-gatherers. It required the acts of their local legisla- 
tures to be sent liome for approval. It governed them with most despotic 
sway ; but do we govern New Mexico and Deseret ? How, sir, in what 
manner have we governed these territories ? We have steadily refused 
' them all governments. The regis of our protection has not been ex- 
tended over them. We have sent them neither governors, secretaries, 



DELEGATE FEOM NEW MEXICO. 193 

judges nor tax-gatherers. "We have taken no cognisance of thera, or of 
their condition. This state of things ought not so long to have existed. 
It was the solemn duty of Congress to have taken these people under 
its care — to have extended over them the shield of the Constitution — to 
have given them laws and government. It was a reproach to Cono-ress 
that all this had been neglected or refused. He (Mr. B.) took his due 
share of this general reproach. It had been the misfortune of himself 
and of others, that they could not agree on a form of government proper 
to be granted. It had been the misfortune of the people who were now 
seeking this informal admission on the floor of Congress, that these 
differences of opinion existed. But were we on that account to set all 
precedent at defiance, disregard the law, and trample the principles of 
the Constitution under foot ? He could not agree to this. He stood 
ready now, as he had stood from the beginning, to vote a proper repub- 
lican form of government to these territories — to fix for them proper 
metes and bounds ; and this being done, he should vote for the admis- 
sion of delegates from each. 

Mr. B. said he disclaimed all sectional feelings in the votes he was 
giving. He had taken ground against the admission of Mr. Smith 
Avhen he avowed himself a zealous pro-slavery advocate. He based his 
opposition then, as now, on the ground that the laws of the United 
States and the Constitution had not been extended over the territory ; 
that no territorial government had been established; that nothino- had 
been done which gave to New Mexico any legal right to have her dele- 
gate on the floor of Congress. When Mr. Smith changed his position, 
and to propitiate certain influences, he turned Free-Soiler, and published 
a vulgar tirade against the South, he (Mr. B.) had not changed his posi- 
tion. He voted against him, as he had originally intended to do. He 
should now vote against Mr. Babbit, albeit he was understood to be at > 
least not unfriendly to the South. 

He could not consent to admit every one to a seat on this floor who 
comes here and demands admission. If the people on Tio-er Island 
should send us a delegate, he would vote against him. If John Ross or 
Peter Pitchlyn ask admission from the Choctaws and Cherokees, he 
would vote against them. If the hunters and trappers on the Rocky 
Mountains should send their delegate here, he would vote ao^ainst him.' 
In all this proceeding he should govern himself by no sectional feel- 
ing, but by the sternest principles. Whenever delegates came here, as 
they had come in the earlier and better days of the republic, from Ohio ' 
and Mississippi, from Alabama and Indiana, from Arkansas and Michi- 
gan, and, indeed, from all the territories, he should vote to admit them, 
and ask no questions as to whether they or their constituents were for i 
or against slavery. 

He would not pursue this subject. He had risen simply to reply to 
a remark of his friend from Tennessee. He feared that the popular 
idea that government and representation should go hand in hand, when 
propagated by a gentleman so distinguished as the honorable member 
from Tennessee, and coupled with the question in hand, mio-ht mislead 
the public mind. He had, therefore, felt bound to point out the clear 
distinction between the case before us, and the one assumed by the 
gentleman to exist. 

He concluded by repeating that, whenever delegates presented them- 



194 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

selves from territories formed by the United States, and elected accord- 
ing to law, he should vote for their admission. Beyond this he would 
not go. 



HOMESTEADS. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 20, 1850. 

When arrested in the progress of my remarks yesterday, I was about 
to say that I approved of the main object of the bill reported by the 
Committee on Agriculture, and which had been advocated with so much 
zeal and ability by the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson]. I 
Avas about to say that my judgment approved the policy of supplying, by 
some appropriate means, a home to every citizen. 

Ours is essentially an agricultural community. The national pros- 
perity of this country, more than any other, depends upon the production 
of its soil. Whatever tends to increase that production, enliances the 
national wealth, and, by consequence, increases the national prosperity. 
The first care of this nation should be to promote the happiness and 
prosperity of its citizens; and acting on this hypothesis, it has been my 
constant aim to promote the passage of all laws which tended to ame- 
liorate the condition of the toiling millions. 

I have always thought, and now think, that some salutary reform in 
our land system, by which a fixed and permanent home should be placed 
. within the reach of every citizen, however humble his condition in life, 
would promote the national prosperity, add to the wealth of the states, 
and give fresh impetus to the industry and perseverance of our 
people. 

I repeat, sir, that I am for giving to every man in the United States a 
home — a spot of earth — a place on the surftce of God's broad earth 
' which shall be his against the demands of all the world — a place where, 
in tbe full enjoyment of all his senses, and the full exercise of all his 
faculties, he may look upon the world, and, with the proud consciousness 
of an American citizen, say, This is my home, the castle of my defence; 
here I am free from the world's cold frowns, and exempt from the Shy- 
lock demands of inexorable creditors. These, sir, are my sentiments, 
long entertained, and now honestly expressed ; nor am I to be deterred 
from their advocacy by any general outcry. Call these sentiments 
Socialism, Fourierism, Free-Soilism — call them what you please — say this 
* is the doctrine of " vote yourself a farm" — say it is anti-rentism — say 
Avhat you please — it is the true doctrine ; it embraces great principles, 
which, if successfully carried out, will lead us on to higber renown as a 
nation, add to the wealth of the separate states, and do more for the 
substantial happiness of the great mass of our people than all your other 
legislation combined. 

Congress has been in session nearly eight months, and what have you 
done ? — what have you been trying to do ? More than six months of 
that time has been expended in attacking and defending the institution 
of slavery — the North depreciating and trying to destroy the sixteen 



HOMESTEADS. 195 

hundred millions of dollars invested in this species of property; and the 
South, forgetting for a season her party differences, handing together 
for the defence of this vast interest. Sometimes the monotony of this 
tedious drama has been relieved by a glance at other matters, — a mem- 
ber has appeared to advocate the manufacturing interests, or possibly to 
put on foot some grand scheme of internal improvement. But, whatever 
iuis been said in all our discussions, or by whomsoever it has been said, 
"the upper ten" have been constantly in view. No one has thought it 
worth his while to take account of the wants of the millions who toil for 
bread. The merchants and the manufacturers, the mariners and the 
speculators, the professions and the men of fortune everywhere, have 
their advocates on this floor. I speak to-day for the honest, hard-fisted, » 
warm-hearted toiling millions — I speak here, in the councils of this 
nation, as I speak in the midst of my constituents ; and whilst I do not 
object to the consideration which you give to other interests and other 
pursuits, I stand up here to demand even-handed justice for the honest 
but humble cultivator of the soil. 

I cannot forget my allegiance — I know the men whose devotion sus- 
tains this government — I know the men whose friendship sustains me 
against the attacks of slander and the malignity of the interested few. 
For them I speak, and by no senseless cry of demagoguism, will I be 
turned from my purpose of vindicating their rights on this floor. 

Talk, sir, of your lordly manufacturers, your princely merchants, your 
professional gentry, and your smooth-tongued politicians. The patriot- 
ism of one simple-hearted, honest old farmer would outweigh them all ; 
and, for private friendship, I had rather have the hearty good will of one 
of those plain old men than the hypocritical smiles of as many of your 
smooth-tongued oily fellows as would fill this Capitol from its dome to 
its base. 

It is my fortune to represent a constituency in which is mingled . 
wealth and poverty ; — whilst some are wealthy, and many possess more 
than a competency, there are many others on whom poverty has fixed 
his iron grasp. All, I hope, are patriotic. But, sir, if I were going to 
hunt for patriots who could be trusted in every emergency; patriots who 
would pour out their blood like water; and who would think it no priva- 
tion to lay down their lives in defence of their country, I would go among 
the poor, the squatters, the preemptors, the hardy sons of toil. Though 
I should expect to find patriots everywhere, I know I should find them 
here. 

Sir, in the great matter of legislation, shall men like these be neglected ? 
I invoke gentlemen to forget for a moment the loom and the furnace, the 
storehouse, and the ships on the high seas, and go with me to the houses 
of these people ; listen to the story of their wrongs, and let us together 
do them justice. 

Men in afiiuent circumstances know but little of the wants of other 
men, and, unfortunately, care less for the miseries of the poor. Rocked 
in the cradle of fortune from infancy to manhood, they do not under- 
stand why it is that some men toil with poverty all their lives, and die 
at last in penury. Let gentlemen picture to themselves a man reared 
in humble life, without education, and with no fortune but his hands ; 
see him going into the wild woods with a wife and a family of small 
children, there, by his unaided exertions, to rear his humble dwelling, to 



19G ALBERT G. BROWN. 

clear the forest and make way for bis planting. See him after the toils 
of the clay are over, returning to that humble dwelling to receive the 
f-miles of his wife and hear the merry prattle of his little children. 
"Watch him as he moves steadily and firmly on from day to day; fancy 
to yourself his heart buoyant with hope as he marks the progress of his 
growing crop, and pictures to himself the happiness of his wife and little 
children when he shall have gathered the reward of his summer's toil, 
sold it, and with the proceeds secured this his humble home. 

Look, sir, at this scene ; gaze on that sun-burnt patriot, for he is 
Avorthy of your admiration. Now go with me one step further, and 
behold the destruction of all these fairy visions ; blighting seasons, low 
prices, disease, a bad trade, or some unforeseen disaster has overtaken 
him. His year of honest industry is gone — the time has come when 
government demands her pay for this poor man's home. He is without 
money — government, with a hard heart and inexorable will, turns coldly 
away, and the next week or the next month she sells her land, and this 
man's labor, his humble house and little fields, are gone. The speculator 
comes, and with an iron wall, turns him and his family out of doors ; and 
all this is the act of his own government — of a government which has 
untold millions of acres of land. Now, Mr. Speaker, let me ask you, 
can this man love a government that treats him thus ? Never, sir, 
never. To do so, he should be more than man, and scarcely less than 
God. Treatment like this would have put out the fire of patriotism in 
Washington s breast, and almost justified the treachery of Arnold. 

Instead of treating her citizens thus, I would have this government 
interpose its strong arm to protect them from the iron grasp of the 
heartless speculator. By doing so, you encourage industry, promote 
happiness, develope the resources of the soil, make better men and purer 
patriots. In a word, you perform a vast amount of good without the 
possibility of doing harm. 

Not having seen the bill reported by the committee under circum- 
stances which afforded an opportunity for a critical examination, I am 
not prepared to say that its details meet my approbation. 

I am disinclined to give to the settler an absolute title to lands. I 
am so, sir, because I would secure him in the possession of his home 
against his misfortunes, and even against his own improvidence. If he 
is an honest and industrious man, he should have a home where that 
honest heart could repose in peace, and where the hand of industry could 
find employment. If he be dishonest, give him a home where, in the 
bosom of his family, he may hide his shame, and where they may find 
shelter from the frowns of a cruel world. If he is idle and worthless, 
give him a home where his wife and children may toil, and, by their 
example, bring him back to habits of honest industry. In any and in 
every event, give him a home, and secure him in the possession of that 
home, against all the contingencies of life and vicissitudes of fortune. 
When you have done this, rest satisfied that you have at least made a 
better man, and done something towards the general prosperity. 

My own scheme has been reduced to the form of a bill, and before I 
take my seat I beg leave to send it to the Clerk's desk, that it may be 
read — premising that I am wedded to no special plan. The object is a 
good one ; it meets my cordial approbation, and I shall most heartily 
unite in any scheme Avhich gives reasonable promise of success. 



HOMESTEADS. 197 

I offer the paper which I hold in mj hand as a substitute for the 
original proposition, and ask that it may be included in the motion to 
print. 

Mr. Brown's proposition was read. 

Strike out all after the enacting clause, and insert as follows : 

That the laws now iu force granting preemption to actual settlers on the public 
lands, shall continue until otherwise ordered by Congress, and that the same be ex- 
tended to all the territories of the United States. 

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That from and after the passage of this act, the 
rights of preeniptors shall be perpetuated : that is to say, persons acquiring the right 
of preemption shall retain the same without disturbance, and without payment of 
any kind to the United States, but on these conditions : First, The pi-eemptor shall not ' 
sell, alienate or dispose of his or her right for a consideration, and if he or she volun- 
tarily abandons one preemption and claims another, no right shall be acquired by 
such claim, until the claimant shall first have testified, under oath, before the register 
of the land ofiice when the claim is j^referred, that he or she has voluntarily aban- 
doned his or her original preemption, and that no consideration, reward or payment 
of any kind has been received, or is expected, directly or indirectly, as an inducement 
for such abandonment ; and any person who shall testify falsely in such case, shall 
be deemed guilty of perjury. Second : Any person claiming and holding the right of • 
preemption to lands under this act, may be required by the state within which the 
same lies, to pay taxes thereon in the same manner, and to the same extent, as if ho 
or she owned the said land in fee simple ; and in case such lands are sold for taxes, 
the purchaser shall acquire the right of preemption only. Third : Absence of the • 
preemptor and his family for six consecutive mouths, shall be deemed an abandon- 
ment, and the land shall, in such case, revert to the United States, and be subject to 
the same disposition as other public lands. 

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That lands' preempted, and the improvements 
thereon, shall not be subject to execution sale, or other sale for debt; and all con- 
tracts made in reference thereto, intended in anywise to alienate the right, or to 
embarrass or disturb the preemptor in his or her occupancy, shall be absolutely null 
and void. 

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the preemptor may, at any time, at his or 
her discretion, enter the lands preempted, by paying therefor to the proper ofiicer of 
the United States one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. 

Sec. 5. And be it further enacted. That in case of the preemptor's death, if a mar- 
ried man, his right shall survive to his widow and infant children, but the rights of 
the older children shall cease as they respectively come of age, or when they reach 
the age of twenty-one years; in all cases the right of preemption shall remain in the 
youngest child. And in case of the death of both father and motlier, leaving an * 
infant child or children, the executor, administrator, or guardian, may at any time 
within twelve months after such death, enter said preempted lands in the name of 
said infant child or children, or the said preemption, together with the improvements 
on the lands, may be deemed property, and as such, sold for the benefit of said 
infants, but for no other purpose, and the purchaser may acquire the right of the 

deceased preemptor by such purchase. 

** * * * * * * * 

In reply to Mr. Morse, of Louisiana, Mr. Brown said : Mr. Chair- 
man, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Morse], in the progress of his 
remarks was understood by me to assume the ground that my proposition 
is unconstitutional. I did not, as you know, Mr. Speaker, undertake 
to explain, much less to vindicate that proposition. Its provisions are 
so few and so simple, that it may be well left to speak its own vindica- 
tion, even against the furious assault of the honorable gentleman. 

It proposes simply to perpetuate a law which has stood for years on 
your statute book, an honorable monument to the wisdom and justice 
of Congress. To-day, for the first time, it has been discovered to be 
unconstitutional. The preemption law struggled into existence against 
the combined opposition of many of the first minds in the country. It 
has received the repeated sanction of Congress, and to-day I know of.no 



198 ALBERT U. BROWN. 

man from the new states who desires its repeal, or who has the boldness 
to avow such desire if he feels it. Instead of limiting the right of the 
prcemptor to one year or two years, I simply propose to perpetuate that 
right, and this is the measure which the astute gentleman from Louisiana 
says is unconstitutional. I shall not stop to vindicate the measure from 
such a charge. The government has full power to dispose of the public 
lands, and in the exercise of this power, it has from time to time reduced 
the price, and in many hundred instances given them away, 

I ask the honorable gentleman if the act by which five hundred thou- 
sand acres of the public lands were given to the state of Louisiana was 
unconstitutional? Were the various acts giving lands to the states, 
Louisiana among the rest, for educational purposes, unconstitutional ? 
Did the honorable gentleman violate the Constitution last year, when 
he voted to give to his own state five millions of the public lands for 
works of internal improvement ? Did we all violate the Constitution 
the other day, when we voted bounty lands to the soldiers of the last 
war with Great Britain and all our Indian wars ? 

No one knows better than the honorable gentleman, that this govern- 
ment has habitually given away the public lands — given them to the 
states for internal-improvement purposes ; given them to establish col- 
leges and primary schools ; given them to railroad and canal companies 
given them to states and to soulless corporations, for almost every con- 
ceivable purpose ; and all this has been done within the Constitution ; 
but now, sir, when it is proposed to allow the humble citizen to reside on 
these lands, the gentleman starts up as though he had just descended 
from another world, and startles us with a declaration that we are 
violating the Constitution. 

It has pleased the honorable member to denominate this as a villanous 
measure ; and with great emphasis he declares, that its supporters are 
demagogues. It will not surprise you or others, Mr. Speaker, if I speak 
warmTyln reply to language like this. The gentleman was pleased to 
extract the poison from his sting, by declaring that he used these words 
in no offensive sense. In reply, I shall speak plainly, but within the 
rules of decorum. 

" Demagoguing," — " demagoguing," says the honorable gentleman, 
"for the votes of the low, ill-bred vagrants and vagabonds." Sir, this 
is strange language, coming from that quarter. I know something of 
the gentleman's constituents. Many of the best of them are of this 
despised caste ; many of them are the low, ill-bred vagabonds, of which 
the gentleman has been speaking. Many, very many, of them are 
squatters on the public lands. Sir, I should like to hear the honorable 
gentleman making the same speech in one of the upper parishes of 
Louisiana, which he has this day pronounced in the American Congress. 
I can well conceive how his honest constituents the squatters, would 
stare and wonder, to hear a gentleman, so bland and courteous last year, 
now so harsh and cruel. Yes, sir, the gentleman's squatter constituents 
would stand aghast to hear the representative denouncing them as a 
dirty, ill-bred set of vagabonds and scoundrels — when the candidate, 
with a face all wreathed in his blandest smile, had told them they were 
the cleverest fellows in the world ! 

It may do very well, Mr. Speaker, for gentlemen, when they come on 
to .Washington, to get upon stilts and talk after this fashion. It may 



HOMESTEADS. 199 

sound beautiful in the ears that are here to catch the sound, thus to 
denounce a measure intended to relieve the poor man's wants as villan- 
ous, and its advocates as demagogues. But, sir, I take it upon myself 
to say there is not a congressional district in the West or South^Yest 
where a candidate for Congress would dare to use such language. 

Sir, I know very well how popular electioneering canvasses are con- 
ducted, and bold and valiant as the gentleman is, he would scarcely 
commit the indiscretion of saying to any portion of the voters in his 
district that they were an ill-bred set of vagabonds, and if he did, they 
would hardly commission him to repeat the expression in Congress. Let 
me warn the gentleman, that if the speech made by him to-day shall 
ever reach his constituents, it will sound his political death-knell. If I 
owed the gentleman any ill-will, which I take this occasion to say I do 
not, it would be my highest hope that he would write out and print tbat 
speech just as he delivered it. I should at least have a comfortable 
assurance that the speech would be the last of its kind. 

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I have to repeat that, notwithstanding 
the maledictions of the gentleman from Louisiana, I am still for this 
proposition ; and though that gentleman may continue to denounce the 
squatters on the public lands as a Avorthless, ill-bred set of vagabonds, I 
am still their friend. They are honest men, pure patriots, and upright 
citizens. They are worthy of our care. If the candidate can afford to 
flatter them for their votes, the representative should not skulk the 
responsibility of voting to protect their interests. I hold but one lan- 
guage, and it shall be the language of honest sincerity. I would scorn 
to flatter a poor squatter for his vote in the swamps of Louisiana, and 
then stand up before the American Congress as his representative, and 
denounce him as a worthless vagabond. 

Six-, if the men are worthless the women are not, and I could appeal 
to the well-known gallantry of the honorable member to interpose in 
their behalf. If you will do nothing for the ruder sex, interpose the 
strong arm of the law to shield the women and children, at least, from 
the rude grasp of the avaricious speculator. If a man be worthless, let 
the appeal go up for his wife and little children. Secure them a home, 
and that wife will make that home her castle. It will shelter her and 
her little children fi-om the rude blasts of winter, and the rude blows of 
a wicked world. She will toil there for bread, and with her own hand 
plant a shrub, perchance a flower. She will make it useful by her indus- 
try, and adorn it by her ingenuity. Give it to her, sir, and she will 
invoke such blessings on your head as a pious woman alone can ask. 

I thank the gentleman from Louisiana, not for his speech, but for his 
courtesy in giving me a part of his time in which to reply. 



200 ALBERT G. BROWN. 



TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AUGUST 8, 1850, ON PRESIDENT 
FILLMORE'S MESSAGE CONCERNING THE TEXAN BOUNDARY. 

Mr. Brown said : — When the President's message was read at the 

^ clerk's desk on Wednesday, it struck me as the most extraordinary 

paper which had ever emanated from an American President. I have 

since read it carefully, and my first impressions have been strengthened 

and confirmed. 

The document is extraordinary for its bold assumptions ; extraordi- 
nary for its suppression of historical truth ; extraordinary for its war- 
like tone ; and still more extraordinary for its supercilious defiance of 
southern sentiment. 

The President assumes that to be true Avhich covers the whole ground 
in controversy, and to do this he has been driven to the necessity of 
suppressing every material fact ; and having thus laid the basis of the 
message, he proceeds to tell us what are the means at his disposal for 
maintaining his positions ; and winds up with a distinct threat, that if 
there is not implicit obedience to his will, these means will be employed 
to insure the obedience which he exacts. 

Kings and despots have thus talked to their subjects and their slaves, 

but this is the first instance when the servant of a free people, just 

tossed by accident into a place of power, has turned upon his masters, 

' and threatened them with fire and sword if they dared to murmur against 

his imperial will. 

The President sits down to address his first important message to 
Congress, and, as if forgetful of his position, and mistaking this for a 
military, instead of a civil government, he tells us he is commander-in- 
chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of 
the several states when called into actual service. He next proceeds to 
inform us that all necessary legislation has been had to enable him to 
call this vast military and naval power into action. No further inter- 
position of Congress is asked for or desired. His duties are plain, and 
his means clear and ample, and we are told with emphasis, that he 
intends to enforce obedience to his decrees. 

A stranger, who knew nothing of our institutions, might well have 
supposed, from the reading of the message, that the President was a 
military despot ; and to have seen him striding into the House of Rep- 
resentatives with a drawn sword, pointing first to the army, and then to 
the navy, and then to the militia, one, by a very slight transition, might 
have supposed himself in the presence of Oliver Cromwell, instead of 
Millard Fillmore. Why, sir, this redoubtable mihtary hero, who " never 
set a squadron in the field, nor does the division of a battle know more 
than a spinster," talks as flippantly to Congress and the people about 
commanding the army and navy and militia of the United States, as if 
he were a conquering hero addressing his captives, instead of a civil 
oiagistrate making his first obeisance to his superiors. 

Am I to be told by the friends of the President, that no threat was 



TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO. 201 

implied in his late insolent and insulting message — that he did not mean 
to threaten or menace Texas or the South, by the language employed 
in that paper ? Then why inform us that he is commander-in-chief of 
the naval and military power of the government ? Why buckle on his 
armor ? Why present himself here panoplied, as if for war, if his mis- 
sion was one of peace ? Was it necessary for the information of Con- 
gress, or of the country, that the President should tell us that he is the 
constitutional commander-in-chief of the army and navy ? Why tell us 
with so much of precise detail, what laws were in force amplifying his 
powers under the Constitution, if he did not mean to intimidate us ? 
Why, sir, did he inform us that his duty was plain, and his authority 
clear and ample, if he did not mean to close the argument, and rely 
upon the sw^ord ? The whole scope and purpose of the message is clear 
and palpable. It was intended to drive Texas and the South into meek 
submission to the executive will. Instead of entering into a calm and 
statesman-like review of the matters in controversy, he leaps at one 
bound to his conclusions — asserts at once that Texas has no rightful 
claim to the territory in dispute. He plants his foot, brandishes his 
sword, and, in true Furioso style, declares that — 

" Whoso dares his boots displace, 
Shall meet Boiubastes face to face." 

Well, sir, we shall see how successful this display of military power 
on the part of the illustrious " commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy" will be in bringing the South to a humiliating surrender. 

If there be any one here or elsewhere, Mr. Chairman, who supposes 
that the President has acted properly in this matter, let me speak to 
him calmly. Is there an instance on record where a friendly power has 
gone with arms in his hands to treat with another friendly power? 
Texas is not only a friendly power, but she is a state of this Union, 
allied to us by every tie, political, social, and religious, which can bind 
one people to another. Her chief magistrate has witnessed with pain 
and sorrow, an attempt on the part of this government to wrest from his 
state a portion of her territory. He thinks the President may not be 
cognisant of these transactions. He knows it is being done without 
authority of law ; and what course does he take ? He writes to the 
President a respectful note, informing him, in substance, that an officer 
of the army, stationed in Santa F^, had interposed adversely to the 
authority of Texas, and was fomenting discord, and exciting the inhabi- 
tants to rebellion. He made a respectful inquiry, as to whether this 
officer was acting in obedience to the will or wishes of the President. 
Now, sir, how was this inquiry answered ? Did the President make a 
respectful answer to a respectful inquiry ? No, sir. He goes oflf in a 
blaze of military fire ; points to his military trappings — " Here is my 
army, here is my navy, and there is the militia ; my mind is made up ; 
I do approve of the conduct of my civil and military governor in Santa 
Fe ; and if you attempt to displace him, or question his authority, war, 
war, war to the knife, will be the consequence." Such, sir, is my read- 
ing of the President's message. Was there ever such a beginning to a 
friendly negotiation ? Suppose Great Britian had sent a military force 
to take possession of our northeastern territory or of Oregon, and the 
British officer in command had issued his proclamation calling the 



202 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

inhabitants together to make and establish a government adverse to the 
United States, and in total disregard of her claim ; suppose that, on 
seeing this, the President of the United States had addressed a respect- 
ful inquiry to the British government, to know if this proceeding was 
approved ; and then, sir, suppose the British Minister had replied, " Her 
majesty has so many ships of the line, so many war-steamers. Her 
military resources are thus and so. She approves of the conduct of her 
officer in Oregon or in Maine. Her duty is plain, and her means ample 
for maintaining the authority she has assumed." What, let me ask you, 
men and patriots, would have been thought of conduct like this ? Would 
the American President have dared to outrage the sentiment of his 
country by pocketing such an insult, and then proceeding with the ne- 
gotiation ? If he had, is there one man in all this broad land who 
would not, with his last gasp, have heaped curses and imprecations upon 
his head ? And shall this government force an insult upon Texas, a 
sister of the confederacy, which she would not and dare not take from 
any power on God's earth ? 

I know not what course Texas may think it her duty to take in this 
emergency. But, sir, if she strike for her honor — if she strike for her 
altars and her firesides — if she strike for liberty and law, I warn her 
oppressors that she will not strike alone. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I have said that the President has virtually taken 
this question of the disputed boundary between Texas and the United 
States out of the hands of Congress, and has assumed, by an executive 
l^ronunciamiento, to settle the whole matter adversely to Texas; and I 
Avill show that he means this, if he means anything. 

As for anything which appears in the message, Texas never had a 
shadow of claim to any part of the country in dispute. The President 
is particular in stating that the country was a part of New Mexico prior 
to the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and recites at full length the fifth, 
eighth, and ninth articles of that treaty, to show that the country belongs 
to the United States, and that he is bound to protect it by military 
power. But he wholly omits to say anything of the grounds on which 
Texas bases her claim ; not one word of her revolutionary rights ; 
nothing of her treaties Avith Mexico ; not a syllable about her boundary 
as defined in her constitution of 1836 ; no reference to the negotiations 
which led to her annexation ; nothing of the opinions of his predeces- 
sors and their cabinets, recognising the rights of Texas within the 
boundary as prescribed by her constitution ; and lastly, no mention of 
the crowning act of annexation — the resolutions of March 1, 1845, by 
which the star of her existence was blotted out and her political institu- 
tions buried in those of the United States. 

If Mr. Fillmore had thought it worth his while to look into these mat- 
ters, he would have found his duty not quite so plain, nor the obliga- 
tion quite so imperative to use the naval and military power of this 
government to crush Texas, if she dared to assert her rightful claim to 
the country in dispute. 

I commend the history of this transaction to the President and his 
advisers before they commence hanging the Texans for treason. Per- 
haps it may be found that Texas acquired some rights by her revolution 
and by her treaty with Santa Anna. It may turn out that she placed 
the evidence of her rights on record in the enduring form of a Avritten 



TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO. 203 

constitution. It may appear that these rights were recognised by every 
department of this government in its negotiations and debates on the 
treaty of annexation. It will most certainly appear that these rights 
"were solemnly recognised by this government in the final consummation 
of that treaty. By the resolutions of annexation, approved March 1, 
1845, it was provided, among other things, that all that part of Texas 
lying south of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, 
should be admitted into the Union with or without slavery as the people 
might elect ; and in all that part lying north of the said parallel of 
thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, slavery should be prohibited. 
Now, sir, what does this language mean, and why was it employed ? 
Texas, as we all know, had defined her boundaries ; she fixed her western 
limits on the Rio Grande, from its mouth to its source, and she extended 
her northern limits to the parallel of 42°. Hence, when she asked ad- 
mission into the Union, there was no dispute between her and the United 
States as to where her boundaries were. She presented herself with 
fixed boundaries, and we took her as she was. By a solemn compact, 
as binding in its forms as a treaty between nations could make it, and 
as plain in its terms as our language could express it, we accepted her, 
and shaped her policy through all after time on the subject of slavery. 
Her territory north of 36° 30' was to be free, and all south of that line 
was to be slave territory. Such was the contract between Texas and 
the United States — the only contracting parties. Texas presented her- 
self bounded on the west by the Rio Grande and on the north by the 
42d parallel, and we took her as she presented herself. We had either 
to do this or not take her at all. All the debates, all the negotiations, 
all that was written or said on the subject pending the treaty of annexa- 
tion, shows that this was the understanding of both parties. True, 
there was an outstanding dispute between Texas and Mexico about the 
separate or independent existence of Texas. Mexico denied the nation- 
ality of Texas. The United States admitted it ; and treated with her 
as a sovereign. Mark you, Mexico did not dispute with Texas about a 
boundary, but about her separate national independence. We admitted 
Texas, by a treaty entered into between her and the United States, into 
the Union of these states, and we undertook to defend, to protect and 
maintain her against Mexico. We did this in good faith — we went to 
war with Mexico. That war resulted in Mexico giving up all the terri- 
tory that lay within the limits of Texas, as defined by herself, and in 
her ceding other vast tracts of countr}^ to the United States. Now, sir, 
what do we hear ? Why, that certain territory within her constitutional 
limits at the period of annexation, never did belong to Texas ; but that 
it was an integral part of Mexico. And though we assumed to say 
how much of it should be free and how much slave territory, it was 
in truth and in fact foreign territory. By what right did the American 
Congress undertake to say that so much of Mexican tei'ritory as lay 
north of 36 J° should be free, and all below that slave territory ? Con- 
gress undertook no such thing. We all thought then, as I think now, 
that the country belonged to Texas ; and we consulted with no one else 
— contracted with no one else in regard to it. 

The President has with great care traced out the line between the 
United States and Mexico, as defined in the treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo, and has dwelt on the fifth, eighth, and ninth articles of that 



204 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

treaty with great apparent unction, as sustaining his position of hostility 
to Texas. Sir, what had Texas to do with that treaty ? What matters 
it with Texas as to what contract the United States may have made with 
Mexico ? Time was, when Texas was a sovereignty among the nations 
of the earth ; we so acknowledged her ; we contracted with her in that 
capacity : — what she demands to-day is, that you fulfil the contract 
made with her. She is no party to your contract with Mexico ; she 
^ demands good faith in the execution of that contract by which you ob- 
tained her sovereignty, and agreed to protect her against Mexico ; — 
she protests against your protecting her against Mexico, and dismember- 
ing her yourself. 

When, Mr. Chairman, the President was telling us what were his 
duties under our treaty with Mexico, I pray you, was it not his duty to 
have told us what were his duties under the treaty with Texas ? And 
when he was dwelling with so much delight upon the three articles of the 
treaty of Hidalgo, as the law which he was going to enforce with fire 
and sword, was it not worth his while to have made some passing notice 
' of the treaty of 1845 with Texas ? Or has it come to this, that a Free- 
Soil President feels under no obligations to execute a contract with a 
slave state? I suppose, with true Catholic instincts, he does not feel 
bound to keep faith with heretics. 

Santa F^, the country where Lieutenant-General Fillmore is going to 

• halt his grand army, and through which, I suppose. Commodore Fillmore 

may be expected to sail with his naval fleet, lies not only south of the 

northern boundary of Texas — that is, 42° north latitude — but it is in 

fact south of the compromise line of 36° 30' by many miles. Not only 

has the President, in setting aside the legal boundary of Texas, as 

defined in her constitution and recognised by this government in various 

forms, outraged her rights, and covered at one sweep every inch of 

ground in dispute between the United States and Texas, but he has gone 

further, much further ; he has established, or attempted to establish, a 

principle which threatens the very existence of Texas as a separate state. 

What says the President ? That he is bound, by the highest ofiicial 

obligations, to protect the Mexican inhabitants of Santa Fe or New 

Mexico, as he is pleased to call it, against the authority of Texas. He 

has announced, that if Texas attempts to assert her authority in that 

country, and to punish those who commit overt acts of treason against 

♦ her, he will resist her with the whole naval and military power of the 

government. Bear in mind, that this country is within her limits, as 

^ defined by her constitution of 1836, and within the limits of the slave 

portion of this territory, as defined by the resolutions of annexation. 

Now, where does the President look for his authority thus to resist the 

authority of Texas ? Not, sir, to the treaty of annexation, but to the 

treaty with Mexico, and to the eighth and ninth articles of that treaty. 

He finds here that Mexicans residing in the territory ceded to the United 

States by Mexico, shall be protected in their lives, liberty, property, and 

religion. Planting himself on these stipulations, he announces his fixed 

determination to defend the Mexican inhabitants against the authority 

of Texas. The treaty with Mexico is the only law for his government 

in this regard. He wholly discards and treats with contempt the treaty 

with Texas. He looks to but one boundary — that established by the 

Mexican treaty. He looks to but acquisition, and that the acquisition 



TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO. 205 

from Mexico. Now, sir, what is this boundary? and what this acquisi- 
tion? The boundary is the Rio Grande to the southern limit of New 
Mexico, thence to the Gihx river, and to the Pacific, The acquisition 
embraces all the territory lying between Louisiana and Arkansas and 
the Indian territory, on the one side, and this Mexican boundary on tlie 
other. We must recollect that Mexico never recognised the independ- 
ence of Texas ; and when we treated with her, we treated for California 
and New Mexico, and Texas from the Louisiana line to the Rio Grande. 
The President does not respect the line of Texas, as defined in her con- 
stitution and recognised by the resolution of annexation. He kicks this 
line out of his way, and has announced his intention to be governed alone 
by the treaty of Hidalgo. He says he will resist Texan authority below 
the line of forty-two degrees ; aye, he will resist it below thirty-six and 
a half degrees. I know of no other line. The President admits in his 
message that he does not know where the true boundary is. Then it 
becomes a matter of interesting inquiry where his authority is going to 
stop. If the only boundary known to any law as existing between the 
United States and Texas, is disregarded, and the President is resolved 
to protect all Mexicans living on territory ceded to the United States 
by Mexico, and it is true, as we have seen, that Texas was as much a 
cession, so far as the treaty of Hidalgo is concerned, as New Mexico and 
California ; and if the President is going to protect Mexicans against 
the authority of Texas in Santa Fe, — I should like to know how much 
further down he is going to extend his protecting care. Will he go down 
to Austin ? Will he punish as far down as Houston ? May Mexicans 
expect the shield of his protecting care in Galveston ? Is the authority 
of Texas everywhere to fall before the triumphant march of this most ' 
valiant hero — this commander-in-chief of the army and navy of tho 
L^nited States? It might economize blood, sir, if this conquering chief 
Avould only deign to fix a boundary — put up a sign-post at the point 
where he intends to stop hanging and chopping off heads, 

Mr. Chairman, I have great respect for true and genuine heroism ; 
but I confess myself rather restive in the presence of the bastard pro- •- 
geny which this slavery agitation has brought forth. When we were 
threatened with thirty-nine western regiments, I grew impatient ; when 
we were threatened with ten thousand Kentuckians, led on by the great 
compromiser, I felt still more provoked; but when Millard Fillmore 
mounts his Pegasus, and attempts to drive over us with the whole naval 
and military power of the nation, I cannot think or speak with patience, 
AVhen Jackson threatened, there was dignity in the threat. When Taylor 
threatened, it was not quite contemptible ; but for Millard Fillmore, a 
mere come-by-chance — a poor little kite, who has fallen by accident into 
the eagle's nest — when he attempts to play the hero, and to threaten the 
South, one scarcely knows what limit to fix to contempt and scorn. If 
these feelings have a deeper depth in the human soul, let the upstart 
hero, not yet warm in the seat of accidental honor, know and feel that 
he has reached that deeper depth in the heart of every true and faithful 
son of the yet proud and independent South. 

What, Mr. Chairman, is the meaning of all this ? Why does the 
President disregard the most solemn obligations ? Why, sir, does he 
manifest so much of impatience to wrest successfully from Texas that 
which is so justly her own, and which she never can surrender without 



206 ^ ALBERT G. BROWN. 

dishonor? And why, sir, independent of all considerations of justice 
and national faith, are we of the South bound to make common cau^e 
with Texas ? Because, sir, you and I, and every other southern man, 
know that the question of slavery lies at the bottom of all these move- 
ments. That question out of the way, and the President and his cabi- 
net, and his friends on this floor, would not care a single rush whether 
Santa Fe was in Texas or New Mexico. That question out of the way, 
and we should have no disputing about this country. The treaty obli-. 
gations between the United States and Texas would be faithfully main- 
tained, and harmony would be restored in twenty-four hours. Is it not 
melancholy, is it not alarming to every true patriot, to see that this war 
upon a section, this eternal and never-ending assailment of the South, 
has not only warped the judgment of the best and purest men of the 
North, but has so far influenced the action of the President of the 
United States, that he not only does not execute a treaty for the advan- 
tage of slavery, but, in dereliction of the plainest dictates of duty, 
absolutely refuses to do so ? Can any man look at this state of things 
and not see the frightful end we are approaching? What was the 
manifest duty of the President, and in this conjuncture of our affairs — 
admitting that he thought, as I certainly do not, that there was reason- 
able grounds of dispute as to the true boundary of Texas ? Was it not, 
sir, to have occupied the country peaceably and quietly until the ques- 
tion was settled — taking no advantage to himself, and giving none to 
the other party? I hear a voice say, That is just what he did. Not 
so, sir. His predecessor, General Taylor, found a military government 
there, and he allowed that military government to foment disloyalty to 
Texas, and to take incipient steps for throwing ofi" the authority of 
Texas. The acting President goes further, and not only approves this 
conduct, but gives us to understand that he means to maintain it by 
force of arms. The President knows full well that if the rebels against 
Texas throw off her authority and establish an anti-slavery constitution, 
a free-soil majority here stand ready to admit her into the Union as a 
state. It is said that the President never threatened to use military 
power until Texas had first threatened. We all know, Mr. Chairman, on 
what state of facts the movements of Texas have been based. We all 
know that Texas acquiesced in your sending a military establishment to 
Santa Fe, under an assurance that it was not to be used against her 
claim, or to her prejudice ; and we all know that this same military 
power in the hands of the President was used to subvert the authority 
and trample under foot the rights of Texas. Thus it was, sir, when 
Texas saw herself, by means like these, driven from her rightful pos- 
session, that she first spoke of force. But even then, sir, she asked 
respectfully what was meant by all these proceedings, and whether the 
President approved them ; and Ave have already seen in what spirit that 
civil inquiry was responded to. Texas would be unfaithful to her past 
history if she feared to assert her rights, or faltered in maintaining 
them against whatever odds. 

In what attitude, Mr. Chairman, does the northern Democracy pre- 
sent itself on the question of the Texas boundary ? It is within your 
recollection, that in the memorable political contest of 1844, Texas was 
inscribed on all our banners; and from the loud huzzas that went up 
continually, I thought it was inscribed on all our hearts. Mr. Van 



TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO. 207 

Buren was discarded, and Mr. Clay crippled in tlie affections of his 
friends on account of their mutual hostility to the project of annexation. 
Mr. Polk was nominated and elected on the issue. The measure was 
consummated in compliance with the people's mandate. War ensued, 
and the people turned out en masse to prosecute it to a successful ter- 
mination. The first blood was shed between the Nueces and the Rio 
Grande ; and the Democracy voted on their oaths that it was American 
blood shed on American soil. You defended the President through the 
whole of the war, always maintaining that the Texas we acquired, was 
Texas according to the constitution of 1836 ; Texas as she presented 
herself, and as she was accepted under the resolution of annexation.' 
Now, where are you? Will you vote to-day as you voted in 1844? 
Will you vote to-day as you continued to vote through the whole of the 
Mexican war ? And if not, why ? I can understand a northern Whig 
who votes against the claim of Texas. He belongs to a party who was 
opposed to annexation ; opposed to the war ; opposed to the acquisition 
of additional territory ; opposed to everything that you and I were for. 
But how 3'ou can oppose this claim, recognised as it has been in every 
form, supported as it has been by you and me through all its various 
forms and phases, I must confess myself at fault to understand. 

There is one other matter to which I must advert. It is becoilSfe 
quite too common of late, for certain political censors, in and out of 
Congress, to speak of southern men who demand justice for the South, 
as ultras; and if we persist in our demands, and can neither be bribed 
or brow-beaten into acquiescence with northern wrongs, the next step is, 
to whistle us down the winds as disunionists and traitors. It is not, sir, 
because I fear the effects of charges like these on the minds of my con- 
stituents that I now speak. They have known me for many long years ; 
I have served them here and elsewhere ; and if there is any earthly 
power to persuade them that I am a disunionist or a traitor to my coun- 
try, I would scorn to receive office at their hands. I allude to charges 
like this, that I may hold them up to public scorn and reprobation. The 
miserable reptiles who sting the South while they nestle in her bosom, 
are the authors of these base calumnies. Sooner or later they will be 
spurned as the veriest spaniels who ever crouched at the footstool of 
power. I fancy, sir, that there is perfect harmony of sentiment between 
my constituents and myself on the subjects which now divide the North 
and the South. We are southerners and go for the Constitution, and the 
Union subordinate to the Constitution. Give us the Constitution as it 
was administered from the day of its formation to 1819, and we are 
satisfied. Up to that time Congress never assumed to interfere with 
the relation of master and servant. It extended over all, and gave to 
all equal protection ; give it to us to-day in the same spirit, and we are ' 
satisfied. Less than this we will not accept. You ask us to love the 
Constitution, to revere the Union, and to honor the glorious banner of 
the stars and stripes. Excuse me, gentlemen ; but I must say to you, 
in all candor, that the day has gone by when I and my people can 
cherish a superstitious reverence for mere names. Give us a Constitu- 
tion strong enough to shield us all in the same degree, and we will love 
it. Give us a Union capacious enough to receive us all as equals, and 
we will revere it. Give us a banner that is broad enough to cover us as 
a nation of brothers, and we will liono.r it. But if you offer us a broken 



208 



ALBERT G. BROWN. 



constitution — one that can only shield northern people and northern 
property — we will spurn it. If you offer us a union so contracted that 
only half the states can stand up as equals, we will reject it ; and if you 
offer us a banner that covers your people and your property, and leaves 
ours to the perils of piracy and plunder, we will trample it under our 
feet. We came into this Union as equals, and we will remain in it as 
equals. We demand equal laws and equal justice. We demand the 
protection of the Constitution for ourselves, our lives, and our property. 
Wherever we may be, we demand that the national flag, wherever it may 
wave, on the land or on the seas, shall give shelter and security to our 
property and ourselves. These are our demands : will you comply with 
them ? You have the power to grant or refuse them. Grant them, and 
our feelings of harmony and brotherhood will be restored. ^ These evi- 
dences of decay that we witness all around us will vanish, and a 
strong, healthy, vigorous national prosperity will spring up. I shall 
not predict the consequences of your refusal ; they are so plain that "a 
wayfaring man though a fool" cannot mistake them. They exhibit 
themselves in a thousand different forms — in the divisions of our churches, 
in the estrangement of family ties, in jealousies between the North and 
" the South, in the gradual but certain withdrawal of all confidence and 
fdftowship between the people of the two great sections. Where is the 
patriot heart that has not throbbed with the deepest anxiety as from 
day to day the growth and progress of these things has become more 
apparent? I will not dwell upon a theme so full of melancholy; but 
allow me to add, in conclusion, I sincerely hope your conduct may not 
force us in the end to say. We once were brothers, but you have become 
our enemies and we are yours. 



SLAYEEY QITESTIOJS^. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AUGUST 29, 1850. 

Mr. Brown said he designed to make a few remarks only in reply to 
the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. McClernand], and the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Brooks], who had just taken his seat. Both these 
gentlemen had taken a position which had been assumed since the begin- 
ning of the session by many gentlemen from the Northern States, and 
had^put forth views which they seemed to regard as likely to obtain the 
'favor of the South. If these gentlemen (said Mr. B.) were right in sup- 
posing that we of the South are mere shadows, occupied only in the 
pursuit of shadows, then they might succeed in the object at which they 
aim. But if we are real, substantial men, things of life and not shadows, 
then they will find themselves mistaken in their views. What was it 
the South had demanded ? She had asked to be permitted to go into 
these newly-acquired territories, and to carry her property with her, as 
the North does ; and he desired to tell his friends from Illinois and from 
New York, that she would be satisfied with nothing less than this. It 
was in vain to tell the people of the South that you will not press the 



SLAVERY QUESTION. 209 

proviso excluding slavery, because circumstances are such as to exclude 
slavery without the operation of this provision, and therefore it is not 
necessary to adopt it. He would tell gentlemen Avho use this argument, 
that the southern people care not about the means by which slavery is 
to be excluded. They will not inquire whether nature is unpropitious 
to the existence of slavery there, while they know that the whole course 
and desire of the North has been with a view to its exclusion from the 
shores of the Pacific. It was only necessary to look at the history of 
the last few years to satisfy ourselves that it has been the purpose of the 
North to produce this exclusion. 

The honorable gentleman from Illinois had administered a well- 
deserved rebuke to the factious spirit of free soil, as manifested in the 
proposition of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Root] ; for that he (Mr. B.) 
felt as profoundly grateful as any other man. It was a spirit which 
ought to be rebuked everywhere. It deserved the universal execration 
of all good men. But it was his duty to say to his honorable friend, 
that so much of his remarks as were directed against the proviso, on the 
ground that it was not necessary to our exclusion, failed to excite his 
(Mr. B.'s) gratitude, as they would fail to elicit the gratitude of the 
southern people. The gentleman from Illinois would not be informed 
that he had Mr. B.'s highest respect as a gentleman, and his sincere 
personal regard — but, as a southern man, he felt bound to say at all 
times, and on all occasions, to all persons, friends and foes, that he and 
his section demanded as a right an equal participation in all these terri- 
tories, and they could not feel grateful to any man who placed his 
opposition to the proviso on no higher grounds than that they were 
excluded by other means. If his honorable friend had placed his opposi- 
tion to the proviso on the grounds that the South had rights, and that 
those rights ought to be respected, then iNIr. B. and the whole South 
would have felt a thrill of gratitude which none of them would be sIoav 
to express. If the proviso was wrong, it ought to be opposed on the 
high ground of principle, and not on the feeble assumption that it was 
unnecessary. To oppose it on the ground that it was not necessary, 
was to say in eifect that it would be sustained if it was necessary. 

The gentleman from New York had just informed the House that he 
was elected as a Wilmot proviso man, and now he rises and makes it his 
boast that he is backing out from the position he then assumed. 

Mr. Brooks (Mr. Brown yielding) said, that although this proviso was 
made a test, he had told the people who elected him that he would not 
pledge himself to vote for it ; that he was willing to remain at home, but 
that, if he was elected, he must go as an independent man. 

Mr. Brown resumed. The gentleman from New York had certainly 
taken high ground. But, if he was not mistaken, that gentleman was 
the editor of a daily paper in New Y^'ork (the Express), and in that 
journal, unless he was again mistaken, the Wilmot proviso had been 
supported. The gentleman, therefore, had not left much room for doubt 
as to his real sentiments. There was very little occasion for him now 
to come forward and to say whether he was for or against the proviso. 
But he desired to ask that gentleman, whether he was for or against this 
proviso when its adoption was deemed necessary for the exclusion of 
slaves from the new territories ? If he was then in favor of the proviso, 
the fact that he is now opposed to it, because he is satisfied that the 
14 



210 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

South cannot carry lior slaves thitlier on account of the hostility of the 
climate atid soil, and other more potential causes, his position was one 
not calculated to excite the gratitude of the friends of the South. 

Mr. Brooks (IMr. Brown yielding) said, he had not changed one 
principle, but ho had been converted to the gentleman's doctrine of non- 
intervention, or non-action. It had always been his opinion that the 
power of the general government ought never to be exercised, whether 
in favor of or against slavery. If the South should suffer from her 
inability to carry her slave property into these territories, the North 
would suffer still more if she was permitted to do so, because her citizens 
would not consent to go to these territories if slavery existed there. 

Mr. Holmes. I congratulate the whole country that the gentleman 
from New York has given up his adhesion to the Wilmot proviso. 

Mr. Brown (resuming). The conversion of the gentleman from New 
York to the doctrine of non-intervention had come about as much too 
late as his abandonment of the Wilmot proviso. They were both too 
late to do any good. If the gentleman had kept his hands off slavery 
before the last presidential election, then, indeed, the southern people 
might have had some reason for gratitude. But, instead of doing that, 
the gentleman adheres to the proviso until it is too late for non-interven- 
tion to do any good, and then he forsakes the former and becomes a 
convert to the latter. 

The gentleman from New Y'^ork appeared to be greatly horrified at 
what he was pleased to call political associations on this floor — at the 
strange phenomenon of the two great extremes of the North and the 
South voting together. He would explain this apparent inconsistency. 
The South regarded the whole of the territory to latitude 42° and east 
of the Rio Grande as the property of Texas, and was not disposed to 
permit any portion of that territory to be surrendered for the purpose 
of being made free soil. This was the position occupied by the southern 
extreme. The northern extreme considers the title of the United States 
to all this territory as clear beyond dispute, and therefore are opposed 
to purchasing it. This is the reason why the two extremes are acting 
together on principles apparently antagonistical, for the purpose of 
defeating this bill. Is it remarkable that he (Mr. B.) and his southern 
associates, believing conscientiously that the title to the country, in the 
language of the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Marshall], is in Texas, 
and that the United States has neither title nor color of title, should 
refuse to give it up ? Is it strange that other gentlemen, believing, as 
they say they do, that the title of the United States is clear and indis- 
putable, should refuse to pay Texas ten millions to withdraw an un- 
founded claim ? Gentlemen may pretend to marvel at this singular 
political conjunction, but they all know perfectly well the motives which 
have produced it. 

He, however, deemed that it would be found quite as remarkable a 
political phenomenon that the gentleman from New York, and many of 
his political friends from the South, should be found cheek-by-jowi with 
these same detested Free-Soilers on another question. We vote with 
them from exactly opposite motives, as the gentleman and the whole 
country very well know. But from what motive does the gentleman 
and his southern friends vote with them for the admission of California? 
Is there any opposite motive there? None, sir, none. There is on-? 



SLAVERY QUESTION. 211 

motive common to tliem all, and that is, the admission of a free state 
into the Union. The f:;entleman expresses special wonder that Ave are 
found voting with the Free-Soilers. Can he give any other reason than 
the one just assigned why he and his southern friends vote with them on 
another question ? 

Until the gentleman could assign some satisfactory reason why he 
and his party, North and South, were found in political fellowship with 
every Free-Soiler and Abolitionist in the land for the admission of 
California, it would be modest to suppress his wonder at the accidental 
association of Free-Soilers and southern gentlemen on the boundary of 
Texas. 

The difference between us (said Mr. B.) is this : we act with them 
from extremely opposite motives ; you from concurrent opinions and 
sentiments ; and we will leave to posterity and the country to decide 
which stands most justified in the eyes of all honest and impartial men. 

But his main object in rising to address the House was to say what 
were the demands of the South. She asks for an equal participation in 
the enjoyment of all the common property ; and if this be denied, she 
demands a fair division. Give it to her, give it by non-intervention, by 
non-action, or by any other means, and she will be satisfied. This is 
her right, and she demands it. But if, instead of doing this, the North 
insists on taking away the territory and abridging the rights of the 
South, she will not submit to the wrong in peace, nor meanly kiss the 
hand that smites her. He uttered no threat, but it was his duty to say 
that the South could neither forget nor forgive a wrong like this. She 
cannot forget that these new territories were purchased in part by her 
blood and treasure, and she will not forgive the power that snatches 
thefn from her. He had never undertaken to say what course the South 
would feel it her duty to pursue on the consummation of her unjust 
exclusion from these territories, but he would say, that the act of her 
exclusion would sink like a poisonous arrow into the hearts of her peo- 
ple, and it would rankle there, and in the hearts of their children, as 
long as the union of these states continued. The consummation of 
northern policy may not pro'duce an immediate disunion of these states ; 
but it will produce a disunion of northern and southern hearts ; and he 
left it to others to say whether a political union under such circumstances 
could be long maintained, or whether it was worth maintaining. 

It can excite no feeling of gratitude that the gentleman from New 
York [Mr. Brooks] says he is now opposed to the Wilmot proviso. He 
is for the spirit of the proviso. He would be for its letter, if it was ' 
necessary for our exclusion. He consents to abandon it simply because 
it is useless. There was a day when it was potential. Then the gentle- 
man was for it. Now, when he supposes our exclusion almost perfect, 
and the means at hand for its entire consummation, he magnanimously 
abandons the proviso. Wonderful liberality ! Amazing generosity to 
the South ! If the gentleman is not canonized as the most generous 
man of his age, surely gratitude will have failed to perform her office. 

We of the South well understand the means employed for our exclu- 
sion. This proviso, once so much in favor with the gentleman from New 
York, now so graciously abandoned, performed its ofiice. It was held 
in terrorem over California: southern property, termed as property 
always is, was kept out of the country. The column of southern emigra- 



212 ALBERT G. BilOUX. 

tion was checked at the onset — whilst every appliance was resorted to 
to swell the column of northern emigration. Every means was resorted 
to which political ingenuity could devise and federal power make effec- 
tive, to hurry on this emigration, and then, with indecent haste, the 
emigrants, yet without names or habitations in the country, were induced 
to make a pretended state constitution, and insert in it the Wilmot pro- 
viso. The gentleman need not be told how far the federal administra- 
tion was responsible for these things. He need not be reminded that he 
and his quondam proviso friends were prominent actors in all these scenes. 
Need he be told that the proviso was the SHIBBOLETH of their power? 
It was used so long as it was effective. It was used for our prostration, 
and now it is thrown aside for no better reason than that it is useless — 
that it is no longer necessary. 

Does not the gentleman from New York know very well that the 
California constitution is no constitution until adopted by Congress ? 
Does he not know that that constitution contains the proviso ? Does he 
not know that the proviso is powerless in that constitution until sanc- 
tioned by Congress ? And does he not mean to vote for that constitu- 
tion, with the full intent and purpose of giving vitality to that proviso ? 
With how much of liberality — with how much of justice to the South, 
does the honorable gentleman come forward to assure us that he is 
against the proviso ? The gentleman is opposed to ingrafting the pro- 
viso on the territorial bills for Utah and New Mexico ; and we thank 
him for his opposition. But what reason does the gentleman give for 
this opposition ? The decrees of God have already excluded us. He 
has no idea that slavery would ever penetrate the country. He is 
opposed to the proviso, because it is unnecessary. If it was at all neces- 
sary for our exclusion, the honorable gentleman would be for it. He 
must excuse us if our gratitude fails to become frantic for this singuhir 
exhibition of forbearance and liberality. 

Mr. Brown was willing to trust the rights of the South on the strict 
doctrine of non-intervention. If God, in his providence, had in fact 
decreed against the introduction of slavery into Utah and New Mexico, 
he and his people bowed in humble submission to that decree. We think 
the soil and climate are propitious to slave labor ; and if they are not, 
we shall never seek the country with our slaves. All we ask of you is, 
that you will not interpose the authority of this government for us or 
against us. We do not fear the Mexican laws, if you will in good faith 
stand by the doctrine of non-intervention. We will risk the protection 
of the Federal Constitution, and the banner of the stars and stripes, for 
ourselves and our property^. All Ave ask of you is, that you will in good 
faith stand neutral. 

He had never announced his purpose of voting against the territorial 
government for Utah. He meant to vote for it, and he should vote for 
the territorial government for New Mexico if the boundary was so 
arranged as to respect the rights of Texas. He was opposed to the 
admission of California, because her constitution was a fraud — a fraud 
deliberately perpetrated for the purpose of excluding the South; but lie 
was in favor of giving; governments to Utah and New Mexico on the 
ground of strict non-intervention. He did not want to be cheated in 
this business, and he therefore proposed this question to the honorable 
gentleman from New York : Suppose we pass these Utah and New 



SLAVERY QUESTION. 213 

Mexican bills at this session without the Wilmot proviso ; and suppose 
the Southern people commence moving into the territories with their 
slaves, and it becomes apparent that they are to be slave territories and 
ultimately slave states ; and suppose that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Root], at the opening of the next Congress, offers the Wilmot proviso 
with a view to check our emigration and to exclude us from the territo- 
ries with our slaves, will the gentleman, if a member of Congress, then 
vote for the proviso ? 

Mr. Brooks replied in the negative, as far as he was heard. 

Mr. Brown. Then if we take our slave property into the territories, 
we are assured that we are not to be disturbed in its peaceable and quiet 
enjoyment by any act of this government. 

Mr. Brooks said, that if he should be here he certainly should not 
vote to repeal any territorial bill for which he had voted. He only 
spoke for himself. 

Mr. Brown was gratified to hear this statement ; whilst he could not 
insist on the gentleman answering for the North, he must express his 
regret that he did not feel authorized to answer at least for his political 
friends. The gentleman had answered manfully, and, he did not doubt, 
sincerely; and if the whole North, or a majority even, would answer in 
the same way, it would go far towards restoring harmony. He asked 
honorable gentlemen Avhether they were ready to pipe to the tune set 
them by the gentleman from New York ? If they were, the whole South 
would listen. It was a kind of music they liked to hear from the North. 
There was in it more of the gentle harp, and less of the war-bugle than 
they had been accustomed to from that quarter. 

Mr. Brooks said, it appeared after all that there Avas no essential 
difference between them. 

Mr. Brown. So far as this Congress is concerned, we ask nothing 
more than that we shall be treated as equals, and that no insulting dis- 
crimination should be made in the action of Congress acrainst slave 
property. If the gentleman agrees to this, there can be no essential 
difference between us. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, to the subject of the Texas boundary. Is there 
one man in this House, or throughout the nation, who does not know 
that but for the question of slavery, there would be no such question as 
that of the Texas boundary ? Suppose, sir, that Texas and New Mexico 
were both as clearly slaveholding countries as North and South Caro- 
lina, how long, sir, do you think it would take this Congress to fix a 
boundary between them ? Not one hour — certainly not one day. Of 
what consequence could it be to the North, whether Texas extended to 
the 32d or to the 42d degree, or to any intermediate point ? Take out 
the question of slavery, and of what consequence is it where the boundary 
of Texas may be fixed ? Does any man suppose that the money-loving 
men of the North would vote ten millions of dollars from a common 
treasury to buy a slip of soil from a slaveholding State, simply to give it 
to a slaveholding Territory ? No, no. We all understand this matter. 
If the country is left in the possession and ownership of Texas, it must 
be slave territory, and if it is given up to New Mexico, you mean that 
it shall become free territory, and you do not intend to leave any stone 
unturned to accomplish this end. We know this, and we govern our- 
selves accordingly. Let northern gentlemen speak out on this subject. 



214 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

, The thin covering, that they want to do justice between Texas and 
New Mexico, furnishes a poor disguise to the real purpose. We all 
know that slavery restriction is the lever with which you are lifting the 
title of Texas off this country, and giving it up to New Mexico ; and we 
all know that you are attempting to do this without right, or color of 
right, to perform such an act. 

Mr. McClernand (Mr. Brown yielding) said, that Texas claimed the 
Rio Grande for its whole extent to be her western boundary. By the 
resolutions annexing Texas to the United States, slavery is interdicted 
north of 36° 30' within her professed limits. The amendment proposed 
by the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Boyd) provides that slavery may 
exist in any portion of the territory Avest of the boundary of Texas, as 
proposed by the Senate bill, between 32° and 38° north latitude, east of 
the Rio Grande. That is, the amendment provides that slavery may 
exist in any part of said territory, according as the people inhabiting it 
may determine for themselves when they apply for admission into the 
Union. So that to the extent of so much of said territory now claimed 
by Texas, lying between 36° 30' and 38° north latitude, the South, 
according to the test of my able and worthy friend from Mississippi, 
stands upon a better footing under the amendment proposed than she 
does under the resolutions of Texas annexation. 

Mr. Brown resumed. If we are left in that condition in which we 
were by the annexation resolutions, we are satisfied. What we ask in 
regard to Utah, New Mexico, and California, is, that the North will not, 
by means direct or indirect, disturb us then in the quiet enjoyment of 
our property. What we ask in regard to Texas is, that you will abide 
by the resolutions of annexation. We are satisfied with the contract, 
and we are opposed to making any other. This contract gives us all 
south of 36° 30' as slave territory, and dedicates all north of that line to 
free soil. We stand by this. If gentlemen want to buy from Texas her 
territory north of 36° 30', let them do it. They had his full consent to 
give her ten, twelve, or fifteen millions of dollars. He should interpose 
no objection. But when it came to selling out slaveholding Texas with 
a view of enabling the North to make New Mexico a non-slaveholdins; 
state the more readily, he felt it his duty to interpose by all the means 
in his power. He never meant to give his vote for any proposition or 
combination of propositions which looked to the deprivation of Texas of 
one inch of her rightful soil. He wanted to deal fairly by all parts of 
the country. He trusted he should be as ready to act fairly by the 
North as by the South, but he invoked the vengeance of Heaven if ever 
he gave his vote for any bill or proposition to buy the soil of a slave state 
to convert it into free soil. 



THE EWING INVESTIGATION. 215 



THE EWING INVESTIGATION. 

In the House of Representatives, Wednesday^ September 11, 1850, — On the report 
of the Select Committee appointed April 22, 1850, to examine into certain official 
acts of Thomas Ewiu<T, late Secretary of the Interior, and in reply to Mr. Yinton 
of Ohio, Mr. Bror'n said: 

Mr. Speaker : It is with extreme reluctance that I venture, at this 
late period of a protracted session, to address the House. I feel called 
upon, however, by an imperative sense of duty, to make a brief response 
to the speech which the honorable gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Vinton] 
has just now concluded, and to that end I crave the indulgence of the 
House. 

Before proceeding to the consideration of the subjects embraced in 
the report and resolutions, allow me to advert for a moment to the man- 
ner in which that report and the accompanying resolutions were received 
in this House. 

Now almost five months since, a series of resolutions were passed by 
the House of Representatives directing an inquiry into th^ official con- 
duct of the then Secretary of the Interior, Thomas Ewing. A select 
committee was appointed, and they were charged with the direction and 
prosecution of these inquiries. They entered upon the discharge of 
the duties assigned them. It was then spring, the summer has come 
and gone, and here in the beginning of autumn your committee have 
concluded their labors. They bring their report, and lay it upon your 
table, and through their chairman they ask for it that courteous and re- 
spectful consideration which has been uniformly awarded to all reports 
coming from committees of this House. They ask that the report may 
lie upon the table and be printed, and that a day may be fixed for its 
consideration. This has been denied. A judgment is evoked in 
advance of all consideration or reflection ; without reading, without 
printing, before a single member has had an opportunity of examining 
the report, a judgment is asked. On its first introduction into the 
House, the gentleman from Ohio, himself a member of the committee, 
calls upon the House to pass its judgment. How well he has succeeded 
in this, the House and the country already know. 

Why, sir, was the gentleman from Ohio so impatient to have this 
report acted upon, or rather slurred over ? Was there any important 
public interest suffering, or likely to sufter by a little delay ? No, sir ; 
another and a very different interest was to be protected by smothering 
this report. The conduct of a distinguished friend, political and per- 
sonal, of the gentleman, had been criticised and justly censured ; impor- 
tant and startling facts had been brought to light. The existence of 
these facts was wholly inconsistent with the idea of a faithful and 
proper administration of the Department of the Interior, and it was 
necessary to give them the go by — to bury them, if possible, among the 
unpublished and useless papers which accumulate during a long session 
of Congress. The gentleman was familiar with all the facts. He had 
attended upon the committee for more than four months. He knew 



216 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

what the report and tlie papers contained ; and I take it upon myself to 
say, that in opposing the motion to print, and in insisting upon bring- 
ing the House to an immediate vote on the resolutions, he took a course 
which his experience assured him could result in nothing less than an 
acquittal, without a trial, of Mr. Ewing. 

Mr. Vinton said he had insisted upon an immediate consideration of 
the report because to postpone it would have been equivalent to doing 
nothing, as it would never again have been reached. 

Mr. Brown. That excuse shall not avail the gentleman. If he had 
been anxious to have a fair hearing, why not have asked to make the 
subject the special order for some subsequent day? Then it would have 
certainly come up for consideration. No, sir, the gentleman's knowledge 
of the facts assured him that it would not do to risk a fair investigation, 
and his tactics were employed to hurry on a decision before the House 
could be informed of these facts. The gentleman knew very well that if 
members could be forced to a vote without a knowledge of the facts, 
they would acquit the Secretary. They would do this' on the well-known 
ground that all men are presumed to be innocent until their guilt is 
established. His legal acumen was not severely taxed to discover that 
if the facts could be withheld until a vote could be exacted, the pre- 
sumption of innocence w^ould be strongly in favor of the accused. 
Mr. Vinton said, he had consented to the printing of the report. 
Mr. Brown. I know that ; I know the gentleman made a virtue of 
necessity, and consented to have the report printed after his course had 
been assailed by the chairman of the committee [Mr. Richardson]. But 
what was the gentleman's first movement ? To oppose any -postponement 
of the subject, even to allow the report to be printed. He succeeded in 
defeating the postponement, and we have been actually forced into the 
consideration of the whole subject, and are now considering it, when not 
a member, save those on the committee, has ever seen the report or 
knows anything of the real state of the facts. The gentleman now 
makes a merit of consenting to have the report printed. In the course 
of some days it will have been published. In the mean time the House 
will be called on to vote. We shall have the verdict first, and the evi- 
dence submitted to the jury afterwards. This, to say the least of it, 
will be rather an irregular proceeding. 

The gentleman, with the adroitness of a politician of twenty or more 
winters, laid his whole scheme so as to give it the best possible assuranc£ 
of success. It is far from my purpose to charge the gentleman with 
dishonorable conduct. But really, sir, there is something about this 
transaction which excites my curiosity, and seems to invite the most 
rigid scrutiny. The gentleman from Ohio will correct me, if I err in 
my relation of the facts. He went to the chairman of the committee 
and obtained the report of the majority before its delivery to the House, 
as he said (and no doubt truly), to prepare a minority report. It became 
important to have the report copied, and though the capitol was full of 
clerks, and though the streets were crowded with persons seeking em- 
ployment, the gentleman could find no one to copy this report but 
young Mr. Ewing, the son of the ex-Secretary, whose conduct had given 
rise to and had been criticised in the report. The first we hear of the 
report, it is in the hands of Mr. Ewing; next Senator Mason, of Vir- 
ginia, has it; and then a copy is handed round among the Virginia 



THE EWING INVESTIGATION. 217 

members on tins floor. All this was before the report had been made 
to the House, and without the knowledge of the chairman or any mem- 
ber of the majority of that committee. Now, sir, I want to show the 
effect of this proceeding. 

Mr. Vinton. I have already stated that I had nothing to do with 
furnishing the Virginia members with copies of that report. 

Mr. Brown. I recollect the gentleman's disclaimer, and do not mean 
to impugn his veracit}'-. He placed the report in the hands of young 
Mr. Ewing ; he, of course, showed it to his father, and he to the Vir- 
ginia senators and representatives. The gentleman gave it a particular 
direction, and he was shrewd enough to know where it would land. But 
why, you are ready to ask, Avas it shown to the Virginia members? I'll 
tell you, Mr. Speaker ; a particular object was to be accomplished. 
The report tvas to he smothered. The gentleman was all-powerful with ' 
his Whig friends. He could bring them up to the work with a pretty 
united front. There might be some bolters, however, and if there was 
not, the party was a little too weak to carry out the scheme. Besides, 
it would give the whole thing a partisan look, if the Whigs went in a 
body for smothering, and the Democrats against it. It became necessary 
to have some Democratic allies. The report contained a severe criticism 
on certain important Virginia interests. The gentlema*., with a skill 
and diplomacy, worthy of Talleyrand, went to work to secure these 
allies in the persons of the Virginia members. The report was very 
quietly, if not secretly circulated among them. They saw the assault 
on the Virginia interests — the scheme took. The vote was taken ; the 
great body of the Whig party voted with the gentleman, and all the Vir- 
ginia Democrats went over to his standard. He carried his point, and 
here we are precipitated into a discussion, before anybody save the 
favored few, have seen the report or know anything of its contents. 

(Here Messrs. Seddon, Millson, Bayly, and McMullen, all of Virginia, 
severally interposed, and said that they had not been influenced in the 
votes given by anything said in the report against the Virginia in- 
terests.) 

Mr. Brown resumed. I certainly never meant to say that honorable 
gentlemen would knowingly and wilfully give an improper vote merely 
for the sake of sustaining an unjust local claim. But we all know that 
the representative is not the most impartial judge of the rights of his 
o^Yn constituent. Indeed, sir, the interest of the constituent is almost 
inseparable from the prejudices and predilections of his representative. 
The gentleman from Ohio well understood this, and he rightly conjec- 
tured that if it came to the knowledge of the Virginia delegation that 
certain important Virginia claims had been condemned in this report, 
the allegiance of that delegation might be relied on. 

I am far from assailing the motives of the members from Virginia ; 
but I cannot help remarking that it is a little singular that they were 
found separated from their political friends on this question. It is 
doubtless all right and fair, but it never happened so before. If one, 
or two, or three had gone over, my astonishment would not have been 
excited. But when they went in a body, I could not help inquiring into 
the cause of so important and significant a movement. I acquit the 
delegation of all improper motives, but I still think these Virginia 
claims had something to do with their votes against postponing the con- 



218 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

sideration of this report until such time as would afford every member 
an opportunity to examine into the facts. 

I have been surprised, Mr. Speaker, at the. grounds taken by the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Vinton], against a further consideration of 
the grave and important matters set forth in the report of the majority 
of this committee. To my mind, it looks very much like-special plead- 
ing, for the purpose of avoiding a fair trial on the merits of the case. 
The gentleman was a member of the committee. He attended its sittings 
regularly. He saw the committee toiling from day to day, through the 
long months of summer, in collating the facts set forth in the report. 
He took a deep interest in the proceedings of the committee, and par- 
ticipated actively in all its labors. Yes, sir, he was here when the com- 
mittee was raised. He was here when the inquiries were directed by 
the House. He went on the committee, performed his due proportion 
of the work, saw the report prepared after four months and more of toil, 
and then for the first time he discovers that the House has no jurisdic- 
tion of the case — that the House was attempting to resolve itself into 
an appellate court for the revision of judicial decisions made by the 
executive oflScers of the government. Did the gentleman make this 
wonderful discovery himself, or was it the offspring of some other 
genius ? Possibly the younger Mr. Ewing, when copying the report, 
may have found it out. It may be, that some or all of the Virginia 
delegation discovered it, or, what is just as likely, ex-Secretary Ewing 
himself may have first started the new idea. To whomsoever the paternity 
of the grand conception may belong, I repudiate it as spurious. What, 
sir ! may an executive officer go on from year to year allowing spurious 
and unjust, grossly unjust and illegal claims against the government, 
and paying them too, without law or semblance of law to sanction his 
conduct ? and must we, the representatives of the people, fold our arms 
in quiet, and be silent because we have no power or right to inquire into 
the official conduct of an executive officer ? If, sir, the conduct of the 
ex-Secretary had not been in the highest degree reprehensible, we should 
have heard nothing of this plea to the jurisdiction. Conscious innocence 
would not thus shrink from a fair investigation. It is precisely because 
these transactions will not bear the light of open day, that attempts are 
being made, and combinations formed, to bury them in this House under 
the hollow pretence that we have no jurisdiction. Why was not this 
discovery made five months back, when the investigation was ordered ? 
Why was it not made during the four months and a half that the com- 
mittee was sitting? Why was it never made until it v. as seen that an 
impartial investigation would result in a condemnation of these transac- 
tions ? — in a condemnation which would arrest such proceedings in 
future, and thereby save millions to the treasury. 

I now tell the House that if the conduct of the late Secretary is not 
distinctly rebuked, and his decisions repudiated, millions of dollars will 
be taken from the national treasury without law and without the know- 
ledge or sanction of Congress. If we, the guardians of the treasury, are 
to stand by and witness these proceedings in silence, because the gen- 
tleman from Ohio says we have no jurisdiction, no power to arrest them, 
why, then, be it so ; I take water and wash my hands of them. 

How long is it since the gentleman from Ohio found that Congress 
could not inquire into the conduct of an executive officer ? During 



THE EWING INVESTIGATION. 219 

these fifteen years or more that he has held a seat on this floor, has lie 
ever, in a single instance, voted against an inquiry into the conduct of 
any Democratic executive officer ? Never, sir, never. I challenge the 
gentleman to a trial by the record, and dare the assertion that he never, 
in all his life, voted against an inquiry into any alleged misfeasance or 
malversation in Democratic oflBce-holders. But now, when a Whig 
secretary is arraigned — when the personal and political friend of the 
gentleman is charged with illegal and improper conduct, he steps boldly 
forward, and says, " Stop ; touch not mine anointed." You may inquire 
into the conduct of Democrats, but Whigs are sacred against such im- 
pertinent and officious intermeddling. 

The gentleman found power in this House to appoint the " Bundel- 
cund committee," and to send them around the world on a voyage of 
discovery. He could delegate to that committee power to pry into the 
private and official conduct of every Democrat in and out of office. He 
could confer upon them the right to propound impertinent inquiries to 
the editor of the Union, and to Mr. Sengstack, as to how they con- 
ducted their private affairs, as private citizens ; and he could even find 
the power to bring these gentlemen to the bar of the House and punish 
them for contempt, because they refused to disclose their private trans- 
actions to the "Bundelcund" inquisition. But he can find no power in 
Congress to inquire whether Mr. Ewing has or has not paid money from 
the treasury without the sanction of law. 

Mr. Vinton said he had not voted for the arrest of the editor of the 
Union and Mr. Sengstack. He did not vote at all. 

Mr. Brown. The gentleman did not vote at all. His party voted, 
and his judgment approved their votes. I ask him if it did not ? 

Again, sir, the gentleman voted last year to inquire into the conduct 
of the then Secretary of the Treasury, Robert J. Walker. Where did he 
get his authority for that ? Is the official immunity of a Democratic 
Secretary of the Treasury less than that of a Whig Secretary of the 
Interior ? 

Mr. Vinton. That inquiry was sent to a standing committee of this 
House ; this to a select committee. 

Mr. Brown. That is rather too refined for my comprehension. I thought 
the plea was to the jurisdiction — to the power of the House to direct the 
inquiry. Now, it seems the House may direct the inquiry, if it only 
employs the proper committee to conduct it. And pray, sir, let me ask 
the gentleman what powers may this House confer on standing com- . 
mittees, which it may not in a like degree confer on a select committee ? 
Neither has any power other than that which it derives from the House, 
and either may receive all the power which the House can confer — and 
one of them in as high a degree as the other. The gentleman will have 
to look about him for some better excuse than this to justify his vote to 
inquire into Secretary Walker's alleged misconduct, and his speech to- 
day against inquiring into Mr. Ewing's official short-comings. 

But my hour is running out, and I must hurry on to a brief investi- 
gation of the facts set forth in the report itself. 

And first of the case of G. W. and W. G. Ewing : Large sums of 
money were paid these persons, who were traders among the Indian 
tribes in the west. The money thus paid was clearly due from the 
government to the Indians. In this I agree perfectly and entirely with 



220 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the gentleman [Mr. Vinton] ; but I cannot concur with him that it was 
rightfully paid to the Messrs. Ewing. A critical investigation of the 
claims of these traders cannot fail to convince every one of certain im- 
portant facts : the first and most important is, that the demands were 
enormously large, springing up as by magic from a paltry sum of a few 
hundred dollars, to many thousands, and that without there having been 
any additional dealings between the parties. In many instances, the 
items composing the accounts were never given, but a demand rendered 
for a large sum in round numbers. In the second place, the transac- 
tions were all of an individual character; the sales, if any were 
made, were all made to individual Indians ; whereas, the demands 
for payment were against the tribes or nations ; thus rendering a whole 
people responsible, without their consent, for the foolish and improvi- 
dent acts of a few individuals. Nay, more than this, it was placing 
the funds of a tribe of ignorant savages at the mercy of these specula- 
tors and traders. Every one knows that intelligent and shrewd white 
men can go among the Indians, and with a few red blankets, or with 
strands of beads and other trinkets, make accounts on a credit with 
them to any amount. And we all know, that if the United States will 
undertake to pay such accounts out of the trust funds belonging to the 
savage tribes, there will be found unprincipled men enough to present 
demands for millions. The third point to be considered in this matter 
is, that Secretary Ewing ordered the payment of these demands without 
sufficient proof of their justice, even against the individual Indians, and 
in total disregard of the rights of the savage tribes. It is true that 
large sums are now suspended to await the action of the House on this 
report. If the committee is sustained, justice will be done the Indians, 
and if not, their funds will be recklessly squandered in paying the de- 
mands of the E wings, and other traders and speculators. 

One of my colleagues on the committee proposes to address the House 
more particularly on this branch of the investigation, and to him I leave 
the further task of pursuing the facts and law of this case. I will not 
dismiss it, however, without calling attention to the position of the 
gentleman from Ohio. 

If I correctly understood the gentleman's position, it was, that inas- 
much as the government owed the money, it could make no difference 
whether she paid it to the Indians or to the traders. If he means by 
this that it makes no difference so far as the money is concerned — no 
difference in a pecuniary point of view, I quite agree with him. ^ But 
the gentleman very well understands that there are other and higher 
questions involved than the mere matter of discharging a pecuniarylia- 
bility. Viewed only as a question of dollars and cents, it is a little 
important, it is true, that the money when paid should pass into the 
proper hands. An error like this might be committed, and, with civil- 
ized and enlightened nations, it could be repaired by simply paying the 
money again. But how is it, sir, with the Indian tribes ? The govern- 
ment has obtained their confidence ; they have consented that we shall 
hold their funds in trust. By and by they will send up a deputation to 
see their great father, the President, and receive their money. They 
will be told that the money has been paid to white men, and they will 
feel cheated ; distrust will take the place of confidence. They will sigh 
for revenge. They will fly to arms ; and the next intelligence from the 



THE EAVING LNVESTIGATION. 221 

west will be that the tomahawk and scalping knife have been taken up, 
and that our frontier settlers are flying from their homes and seeking 
safety. Tell me not, sir, that it makes no difference to whom the money 
is paid. Let the gentleman look into this matter, and he will find 
that the paltry question as to whether we shall pay this money once or 
twice sinks into insignificance in comparison with the other and greater 
questions of morality and safety. I hold that it is in the highest degree 
immoral to execute a sacred trust for an ignorant savage in a way to 
suffer him to be cheated by the white man. And I know, sir, it will be 
found highly dangerous to our frontiers to lose the confidence of these 
Indians, and to drive them to acts of revenge for the wrongs of the gov- 
ernment in misapplying their money. I think, sir, that the Secretary 
did wrong in paying the claims of the Messrs. Ewing, and as the 
departments are only awaiting your action to determine whether they 
will pay other like demands, I hope they may be correctly advised by a 
vote of this House. 

The second in the series of resolutions referred to the select committee, 
directs them to inquire " whether the Secretary of the Interior reopened 
and paid interest, to the amount of thirty-one thousand dollars, on the 
pension granted to Commodore James Barron, for services rendered in 
the Virginia navy during the revolutionary war, after the principal had 
been fully paid and discharged ; and if said interest was paid, was it 
simple or compound ; who was the agent or attorney for said claim ; and 
the authority, for such claim, if any." 

This inquiry has been prosecuted, and a conclusion arrived at which 
seems to me to be fully justified by the facts. 

It appears from the recorded evidence, that James Barron was a com- 
mander in the Virginia (state) navy, from 1775 to the close of the revo- 
lutionary war, and that he died in 1787. 

In May, 1779, the state of Virginia, by an act of her legislature, 
promised half pay for life to all officers in the state and continental 
(army) line, who should serve to the close of the war. 

In 1780, she extended the benefits of this act to the officers of the 
navy, who should serve during the war. 

It is clear, therefore, that Commodore Barron was entitled to half pay 
for life, or from the close of the war to his death in 1787. 

In 1790, long after the close of the war, and three years after the 
death of Commodore Barron, Virginia, by another act, gave to officers 
of the army, and tltey alone, five years fall pay and interest, in commu- 
tation of half pay for life. 

The benefits of the act of 1790 being confined to officers of the army, 
and they alone, it is clear that Barron, who never was in the army, was 
never entitled to commutation. 

And so indeed it seems to have been determined. For in 1823, his 
administrator, in pursuance of a judgment rendered by the superior 
court of Henrico county, demanded and received of the state of Virginia, 
$2008.52, that being the amount of Commodore Barron's half pay for 
life, under the act of 1780. 

To a plain man of common understanding, it would seem that here 
was a full settlement of the Barron claim. He was entitled to half pay, 
and that alone, and his administrator, thirty-six years after his death, 
applied for and received it in pursuance of the judgment of a court of 



222 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

competent jurisdiction. It never was optional with naval officers to take 
either half pay for life, or in lieu thereof five years' full pay with inter- 
est. This was a benefit extended to officers of the army, and them 
alone. But suppose for a moment that officers of the navy had, by the 
act of 1790, been placed on the same footing with officers of the army, and 
that it had been left to their choice to take either half pay for life or full 
pay for five years and interest. Suppose, I say, that this had been the 
law : Did not the administrator of Commodore Barron, in 1823, make 
his election, and take the half pay for life ? Such sir, is the recorded 
fact. 

The truth is, that in 1823, there was no pretence set up by the rep- 
resentative of Commodore Barron that he was entitled to anything more 
than half pay for life. This was all that was claimed, and this was paid. 
The Commodore had been dead thirty-six years, and the state of Vir- 
ginia paid ofi" and discharged to his administrator the only demand 
which his administrator pretended to render against the government of 
that state. 

The next point of inquiry is, how came the United States responsible 
for the debts of Virginia in this regard ? 

The acts of Virginia, passed in 1779 and 1780, were intended to pro- 
mote the cause of independence, and they no doubt had the effect of 
continuing in the service many valuable officers whose private fortunes 
had been greatly reduced, and who, but for the assurances thus held out, 
would have been compelled to look for the means of subsistence in their 
declining years, elsewhere than in the army and navy of an impoverished 
colony. The act of 1790 was passed after the close of the war, and it 
was not, therefore, intended to promote the cause of the war. It is 
perfectly clear, that the liabilities incurred by Virginia under her acts 
of 1779 and 1780, were war debts, and properly chargeable to the 
account of a national revolution. It is equally as clear, that her lia- 
bilities under the act of 1790, were not incurrred in promoting or assist- 
ing the cause of independence ; and however creditable to her generosity 
and magnanimity the act may have been, the liabilities could, in no 
proper sense, be charged to the war debt. It was not called for by 
exigencies of the public service. It was, in fact, an act of generosity — 
a gratuity. 

I by no means say that the United States ought not to perform acts 
of generosity — of gratuitous service. She has performed many such, 
and they stand to her credit. I trust she may perform many others. 
But did she in this instance undertake to relieve Virginia from the pay- 
ment of the gratuity or the bounty promised by her in her act of 1790 ? 
She did not. 

In the year 18o2~fifty-two years after the act of the Virginia legis- 
lature granting half pay for life, forty-five years after the death of 
Commodore Barron, and nine years after Virginia had paid to his ad- 
ministrator the half pay for life due him at his decease — the Congress 
of the United States passed an act, the third section of which is in these 
words : — 

" Section 3. And be it further enacted. That the Secretary of the Treasury be, 
and he is hereby, directed and required to adjust and settle those claims for half pay 
of the officers of the aforesaid regiments and corps, -which have not been paid or pro- 
secuted to judgment against the state uf Virginia, and for which said state would be 



THE EWING INVESTIGATION. 223 

l)0UTid on the principles of the half-pay cases already decided in the Supreme Court 
if Appeals of said state ; which said sums of money herein directed to be settled 
and paid, shall be paid out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated 
by law." 

Now, sir, is there one word in this act which can be construed or 
tortured into a remote intimation that the United States meant to do 
anything more than to assume the ivar debt — the half-pay — as described 
by Virginia in the acts of 1779 and 1780 ? There was a manifest pro- 
priety in the United States assuming this liability. It was incurred in 
the prosecution of a common cause, and it was right and proper it should 
be paid from a common treasury. But I utterly deny that this govern- 
ment ever did undertake to pay commutation, or anything more than 
the half-pay for life to officers of the Virginia navy ; \nd if she did, I 
call upon the gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman from A^'iro-inia to 
point out the act. 

I rest the case on these points : 

1. Virginia undertook to pay her naval officers who served to the 
close of the war half-pay for life. She never did agree to give them 
commutation, or any other pay in lieu of this half-pay. 

2. If Virginia had left it optional with naval officers, as she did with 
army officers, to choose between the commutation or five years' full pay 
and the half-pay for life, then Barron's administrator made his election 
in 1823, and took the half-pay. 

3. The United States, for sufficient reasons, never did undertake to 
assume Virginia's liabilities for commutation, but only for the half-pay 
due her army and naval officers. 

4. Virginia paid Barron's administrator his half-pay in 1823. The 
United States assumed the debt; and when she had returned to Virginia 
the $2008.52 paid by her to Barron's administrator, the transaction 
was closed and the business settled. 

We are next to inquire when and how this matter came to be re- 
opened, and how it was again closed. 

_ July 21, 1849, twenty-six years after the payment to Barron's admi- 
nistrator, and sixty-two years after the death of the commodore, James 
Lyons, of Virginia, a distinguished lawyer, and leading political friend of 
the ex-Secretary of the Interior, preferred a claim against the United 
States for commutation, or five years' full pay, with interest, in lieu of 
the half-pay received by the administrator in 1823. This claim ivas 
'promptly rejected hy the Commissioner of Pensions. 

An appeal was taken by Mr. Lyons, and the case was reviewed by 
Mr. Secretary Ewing. He had doubts. Yes, sir, he had doubts, and 
he referred the case to Mr. Attorney-General Johnson for his legal 
opinion. Mr. Johnson thought the money ought to be paid, and then 
Mr. Ewing thought so, too ; but for what reason they, or either of them, 
came to such a conclusion, we are left in profound ignorance. Neither 
has ever deigned to give the slightest intimation of the wonderful process 
of reasoning by which they manage to mulct the United States for 
$32,000, and to throw this large amount into the hands of their friend,' 
Mr. Lyons. 

I have said the Commissioner of Pensions promptly refused to pay this 
money, and so he did. He continued so to refuse until he was peremp- 
torily ordered by Mr. Secretary Ewing to pay it. The order was given 



224 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

December 31, 1849, and seems to have been as novel in its character as 
it was peremptory in its tone. The Commissioner thus speaks of it in 
an official paper now before us : , 

" I accordingly certify, nnder an order from the said Secretary, tliat commutation of 
five years' full pay is due, and interest thereon up to this date. The am.ount of com- 
mutation is $4258.31 J ; interest is to be calculated at six per centum per annum on 
this sum from the 22d of April, 1783, to the 15th day of December, 1S23 ; add the 
amount of the interest up to December 15, 1823, to the commutation, and deduct from 
the total of those sums the amount paid in December, 1823, viz: $2008.52; and 
upon the balance struck calculate the interest from that time up to the present 
date." 

In pursuance of this order, the account was stated as follows : 

Commutation " $4,258 31 

Interest to December 15, 1823 10,385 83 

Interest from December, 1823, to January 2, 1850 . . . 19,382 50 

34.026 64 
Paid by Virginia 2,008 52 

Total . $32,018 12 



This large sum was accordingly paid to Mr. Lyons. If you will be 
at the trouble to examine the mode of calculation, you will be at no dif- 
ficulty in seeing that the interest has been compounded. 

The compounding of the interest is admitted. No one pretends to 
deny this. Mr. Ewing says himself that it was compounded, and he 
informed the committee that he had called upon Mr. Lyons to refund, 
and that the gentleman had refused. 

The decisions of this executro-judicial tribunal cannot be reviewed, we 
are told by the gentlemen from Ohio and Virginia [Messrs. Vinton and 
Bayly]. I should like to know if it is the opinion of these learned gen- 
tlemen that a court, after rendering judgment, and enforcing it too, as 
in this case, to a payment of the money, may then sit as a court for the 
correction of its own errors, and order the plaintiif to pay back the 
money which he has received in due course of law ? And if not, how 
long do they think it Avill be before Mr. Lyons will return to the trea- 
sury the compound interest which his friend Ewing awarded him in this 
case? There is but one remedy for outrages like this, and that is, to 
hold the guilty judge up to public condemnation. 

In deciding this Barron case, Messrs. Ewing and Johnson, without 
justice, law, or reason, overturned the uniform current of decisions of all 
their predecessors, and of the Supreme Court of Virginia, for nearly 
twenty years ; and for the truth of this assertion I refer to the Virginia 
Reports in like cases, and to the decisions and opinions of the Secreta- 
ries and Attorneys-General since 1832. 

The end of this business is found here: The United States, in 1832, 
undertook to pay to Virginia $2008.42, that being the amount of Com- 
modore Barron's half-pay for life, and in 1850 she is compelled by Mr. 
Secretary Ewing to pay $32,018.12, for commutation and interest, 
simple and compound, a sum which neither she nor Virginia ever agreed 
to pay in whole or in part. If this decision is not rebuked by a vote of 
this House, not less than two to three millions of the public money will 
go in the same way. 

One other point in this connection, and I shall have done with this 



THE EWING INVESTIGATION. 225 

Barron claim. The inquiry naturally arises, where did Mr. Ewing get 
the money to pay this claim ? It was taken, like the Galphin money, 
from appropriations intended for other purposes, and then Congress was 
asked to sanction it, by voting through a deficiency bill. No wonder 
this deficiency for the last year run up to four or five millions of dollars. 
Secretaries abstract $32,000 for one purpose, $56,000 for another, 
$230,000 for another, and Heaven only knows how much besides. Such 
lawless profligacy would bankrupt the treasury, if there was a stream 
of liquid gold flowing into it from morning till night. 

The only remaining subject of inquiry is embraced in the third resolu-^ 
tion, and has reference to a large sum of money paid to Dr. William M. 
Gwin, out of a trust fund belonging to the Chickasaw tribe of Indians. 

The Chickasaws inhabited the northern part of Mississippi, and in the 
year 1834 ceded their lands to the United States ; and without entering 
into any minute details of their several transactions, I may state simply 
that the United States retained a certain part of the proceeds of the 
cession in trust for the benefit of the Indians. This fund was to be ex- 
pended in such manner and for such purposes as the Indians should 
direct. In 1837 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and as now 
appears, without any sufficient authority from the Indians, despatched 
Lieutenant Seawright, of the army, to Cincinnati, to purchase provisions 
and provide transports for a party of emigrating Chickasaws, they 
having signified their disposition to remove West. Seawright expended 
for these purposes about $144,000. The Indians received benefits to 
the amount of $32,000, or about that sum, and, as the whole expendi- 
ture was without their authority, they refused to be charged with the 
remaining $112,000. The officers of the treasury, however, charged 
the whole sum to the general Chickasaw account, and the Indians were 
notified accordingly. 

This is the foundation, briefly stated, of the claim about which the 
committee were charged to inquire. 

It seems that in the year 1844, Dr. Gwin, then a citizen of Mississippi 
and now a Senator from California, went among the Chickasaws in 
the West. He entered into a contract with these Indians, and was em- 
powered by a portion of them (who professed to act for the whole) to 
conduct certain fiscal operations of theirs with the United States. The 
written agreement with the Indians was exhibited by Dr. Gwin to the 
accounting officers at Washington, and he entered upon and discharged 
some of the duties devolved upon him as the agent or attorney of the 
Chickasaws. 

A misunderstanding sprung up concerning this agreement. It bore, 
among many others, the name of Ish-ta-ho-ta-pa, the King. This chief 
wrote to the Secretary of War that he had never signed such a paper, 
and that if it bore his name it was without his authority. Dr. Gwin, on 
having his attention called to the subject, admitted that the King did 
not sign the paper, but that another person, who represented that he 
had authority, had signed for him. 

A letter signed W. A., and understood to be from William Armstrong, 
late General Indian Agent West, dated Choctaw Agency, 12th October, 
1846, and now on file among the official papers, thus speaks of this 
transaction: 

"I received at Nnshvllle vour letter iufurming nie of Dr. G's movements. J was 
15 



226 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

not a little surprised to hear that he came so near succeeding in the Chickasaw claim. 
The fact is, the whole affair was wro)ifj. I had no idea when Dr. G. first came over to 
the Chickasaws, what his business was." 

The matter was variously canvassed, and in the end the contract was 
rescinded. The paper or contract seems to have been given np or 
destroyed, and a new contract was entered into. It was under this new 
contract that the claim of which I am about to speak was paid. I have 
spoken of the first contract only because it was the basis of Dr. Gwin's 
transactions with the Indians, and hence became intimately associated 
with the history of the case. I now dismiss it, and shall hereafter speak 
only of the second contract. This last paper is among the documents 
now on my desk ; but as it is without date, I am unable to say when it 
was executed. It will become important in the course of this investiga- 
tion to fix its date, and I shall have recourse to other testimony for that 
purpose. 

Before entering into a further examination of this case, I must pause 
to settle a small account with the minority of the committee. In their 
report I find this remarkable and strong language: 

" There is no evidence whatever among the records of the department to sustain 
the finding of the committee that this claim was rejected by the proper officer, and 
reopened and allowed by the Secretary of the Interior ; indeed the finding is directly 
contrary to the recorded fact." 

In this they make a direct issue with the majority, and I shall have 
recourse to the oflUcial papers to test the question as to who is right and 
who is wrong. 

The first trace that I find of this case in its progress through the 
departments, is in the Second Auditor's office. On the 8th of Septem- 
ber, 1846, J. M. McCalla, Second Auditor of the Treasury, certified that 
there was due W. M. Gwin, $56,021.49. This certificate was sent to the 
Second Comptroller, and the next trace of it is found in the letter which 

I now read : 

Treasury Department, 

?ECOXD CoilPTROLLER's OfFICE, Scpf. 9, 184G. 

Sir: The Second Auditor of the Treasury, on the 8th instant, reported to me an 
Hccount in favor of William M. Gwin for §56,021.49, chargeable upon the appropria- 
tion for carrying into efi'ect treaties with the Chickasaws, under the act of April 20, 
1836. 

As this claim is " connected with Indian affairs," and calls for an expenditure from 
an appropriation under the charge of the War Department, it should have been 
transmitted to the Commissioner of Indian Afi"airs for administrative examination, 
under the 3d section of the act of July 9, 1832, and the fifth paragraph of " Revised 
Regulations No. 1, concerning the execution of the act of July 9, 1832, providing for 
the appointment of a Commissioner of Indian Affairs." 

In order that the claim may receive the proper administrative examination as 
required by law, I herewith transmit all the papers received from the auditor con- 
nected therewith. With entire respect, &c., 

Albion K. Parris, Comptroller. 

Hon, W. Medill, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. 

Need I go further, to show that the Indian Bureau had been impro- 
perly passed by in the presentation of this claim ? That faithful and 
intelligent officer, of twenty-odd years' experience, A. K. Parris, sent it 
back to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for that administrative exa- 
mination which the case required, and without which it could not pro- 
perly be paid. 

I shall not undertake to trace its history from that day, September 9, 



THE EWING INVESTIGATION. 227 

1846, to Marcli 12, 1850, when it was finally paid by order of Thomas 
Ewing, Secretary of the Interior. Suffice it to say, it was a history of 
stern resistance and constant protests, on the part of the Indians and 
their attorneys, against its payment. Indeed, sir, their arguments, 
protests, and remonstrances are scattered through this immense mass of 
papers on my desk, like the beacon-lights along a difficult and dangerous 
shore. 

The minority of the committee, with a boldness which seems to defy 
contradiction, says : " There is no evidence that this claim was rejected 
by the proper officer. Indeed the finding is directly to the contrary." 
Now, sir, if this be true, how came it that this claim was not paid ? IIow 
did it happen that it lay in the Indian office from the 9th of September, 
1846, to the 12th March, 1850? How came it to lie there until the 
close of Mr. Polk's administration, and until the reign of the " Gal- 
phins" had fairly begun ? We shall sec. I beg to invite the attention 
of the House to certain papers, which being among those officially com- 
municated, could not have escaped the critical eye of the gentleman 
[Mr. Vinton] under whose auspices the minority report was prepared. 

The first paper in this large mass before me is a letter from William 
Medill, late Commissioner of Indian Affairs, to Thomas Ewing, Secre- 
tary of the Interior, detailing the history of this case. It bears date 
June 27, 1849. In one place the writer says : 

"Of the S112,042 99-100 found due the Chickasaws, William II. Gwin, Esquire, 
claims the enormous sum of one-half for his services or instrumentality in recovering 
the amount, under an alleged contract with those Indians. Without dwelling upon 
the extraordinary extravagance of this demand, which is sufficiently apparent by the 
mere statement of it, I would remark, that notwithstanding the peculiar position of 
the Chickasaws, they, like other Indians, are the wards of the government, and no 
such contract or agreements are valid or binding unless sanctioned by the depart- 
ment." 

And again, in speaking of the fund out of which it was proposed to 
pay this " eiiormous sum," he says: 

" I am of the opinion that it could not properlybe used towards repaying the Chicka- 
saws the amount found due to them by the accounting officers : and so the Secretary 
of War, as I understand, decided when the report of these officers of the result of 
their adjustment of the account, and the amount found due the Chickasaws, was 
presented to him in September, 1846, for a requisition for $58,124.14, to be taken 
from the removal and subsistence fund. He certainly peremptorily refused to 
ISSUE THE requisition." 

And again : 

"This being the case, it is not seen how anyportion of it could legally or properly be 
used towards paying the Chickasaws the amount found due them.* In my judgment, 
this can only properly be effected through an appropriation therefor by Congress." 

Does all this look like there had been no rejection, no refusal to pay? 
Does it look as if " the recorded fact was exactly the contrary?" 

Now, let us turn over to page five of this great book of manuscript 
before me, and here we find an order from W. L. Marcy, Secretary of 
War. It is dated October 1, 1846, about twenty-two days after this 
case had fallen into Medill's hands, and is addressed to William Medill, 
Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Mr. Medill, in handing over the papers 
in this case to Secretary Ewing, says, referring to this order : 

* Let me remark here, that In speaking of the amount due them, the commissioner 
means the whole sum,. $112,000, and includes, of course, the $56,000 claimed by Dr# 
Gwin. 



228 ALBERT G. BROWN". 

" The rule of action -which has governed the Executive in cases of contracts with 
Indians, as well as powers of attorne}- procured from them, you will find embodied 
in the accompanying order of the Secretary of War of October 1, 1849." 

Here is the order: 

" The practice which has heretofore prevailed, to a considerable extent, of paying 
money due to Indians on powers of attorney given by them, is wholly inconsistent 
with the duty of government to pay over to them, promptly and without abatement, 
whatever may be due to them under any treaty or law ; or for any claim whatever to 
Avhich they may be justly entitled. Agents are appointed, and by the government, to 
attend to tlieir business fur them, and they should be the medium of all their connnu- 
nications with the government, whether in relation to any claim they may have, or to 
their wants or wishes upon any other subject. 

" W. L. Marcy, Secretary of War." 

How could the minority of the committee, with this record before 
them, deny that there had been any adverse decision, and even intimate 
that the decisions had been in favor of the claimant ? First, we have 
the admitted fact, that the claim was submitted to Mr. Medill in Sep- 
tember, 1846 ; that for more than three years he did not pay it ; and 
that he went out of office without paying it. Second, we have his letter 
before he left the office, assigning his reasons at length for not paying it; 
and thirdly, we have Secretary Marcy's order, so pointed and positive 
that this claim could never have been paid without violating that order. 
And yet, gentlemen say there has been no decision. Nay, sir, they even 
assert that the decision has been in their favor. 

" They must have optics sharp I ween, 
To see what is not to be seen." 

I pass from the consideration of this point, and return to the second 
contract, which we have seen is without date, but which is found to have 
been in the Second Auditor's office as early as 8th September, 1846, It 
may have been there some days earlier. 

By the terms of this contract, which I have before me. Doctor Gwin 
was to have for his services, as attorney for the Indians, various large 
sums of money, and among others, one-half of all that should be 
recovered from the United States on account of provisions purchased 
at Cincinnati in 1837. The sum thus recovered, or which, I should 
rather say, was found to be due on a fair settlement of the Chicka- 
saw account, was |112,042.99. One-half of this sum was, of course, 
$56,021.49, and this was the sum claimed by Doctor Gwin. The report 
and resolutions have no relation to any other payment to Doctor Gwin, 
and I shall, therefore, confine my remarks to this fifty-six thousand dol- 
lars — dismissing the others with the single remark that they were paid. 

We have already seen that the Second Auditor, McCalla, passed this 
claim and sent it down to Second Comptroller Parris on the 8th of Sep- 
tember, 1846. We have also seen that the comptroller sent it on the 
day following to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, where it properly 
belonged, for administrative examination. We have seen that it re- 
mained there to the close of Mr. Polk's administration, and we have 
seen the reasons why it was not paid. Let us now pursue the thread of 
its remarkable history during the three years and more that intervened 
between its falling into Commissioner Medill's hands and its final pay- 
ment by order of Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Interior. 

Within a day or two after the claim was passed by Second Auditor 
McCalla, Doctor Gwin transferred it, for value received, to Messrs. 
Corcoran k Riggs, bankers in this city. 



THE EWING INVESTIGATION. 229 

Various protests of the Indians and their attorney, together with 
other papers, are found on file. But no effort seems to have been made 
on the part of the claimants to change the determination of Commis- 
sioner Medill and Secretary Marcy. Early in 1849, and after the new- 
cabinet were fairly under way, the claimants seem to have renewed 
their labors. A long resting spell had imparted to them new energy, 
and they pursued the case with an earnestness and zeal worthy of a 
better cause. I pass over much that was said and done between the 4th 
of March, 1849, and the 30th of June of that year, and resume the 
history with the following letter : — 

Washington City, June 30, 1849. 
Sir: I have just been informed that an effort is being made to transfer an appro- 
priation now standing on the books of the treasury " for the removal and subsistence 
of Indians," to the appropriation " for carrying into effect treaties with the Chicka- 
saws," witli a view of asking the payment or contract made by certain Chickasaw 
Indians with Dr. Wm. M. Gwin, I most respectfully ask the suspension of your 
action in the matter until I can have time to file a protest on behalf of the Chicka- 
saw nation, and state the reasons why the claim should not be paid without being 
transmitted to the Chickasaw Council for their approval. 
With great respect, your obedient servant. 

Joseph Bryan. 
Hon, T, Ewing, Secretary, &c. 

It will be remembered that Mr. Bryan was the attorney of the 
Indians, regularly employed to resist the payment of this claim. 

On the 2d of July, 1849, Mr. Bryan filed the protest alluded to in 
the letter just read, and from that protest I read the following 
extract : — 

" I deem it altogether needless at this time to go into a history of the transaction, 
as the protest of the agent. Colonel Upshaw, was filed by me in the Indian Office, 
which purported to explain the whole matter, and which had the effect of stopping 
the action of the War Department in the matter, and prevented the payment of the 
claim under the decision of the late Secretary of War, General Marcy. Since 
that time no effort that I am aware of has been made to procure its payment until 
now." 

Nothing daunted, the claimants pressed their suit with increased 
energy, and by way of showing the nature of the opposition and 
the character of the obstacles thrown in their way, I beg leave to 
read two or three short papers found among the files now before me. 
It is impossible that these papers should have been overlooked by the 
most careless searcher after truth in this case. On the 14th of July, 
1848, Colonel Pitman Colbert, a distinguished man among the Chicka- 
saws, wrote to Commissioner Medill the letter from which I read an 
extract : — 

" I present myself and respectfully request to be informed of the amount of money 
received by Dr. W. M. Gwin, by virtue of a power of attorney from the Chickasaw 
commissioners ; also a copy of that power of attorney, as it is important for my 
object to know the names of the persons who made and constituted Dr. Gwin the 
financial agent of the Chickasaws ; and whether or not said Gwin has not attempted 
to draw other sums of money by virtue of said power, since it became notorious that 
his power was revoked by the universal condemnation of the Chickasaw people ; to- 
gether with any other information relating to this matter that may be in possession 
of your department." 

On the 28th of February, 1849, a delegation from the Chickasaw na- 
tion thus wrote to Secretary Marcy. After speaking at some length of 
their claim for $112,042.99, they say :— 



230 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

" But we found in connection, however, with this chiim, that an agreement has 
been filed between William M. Gwin on the one part, and the chiefs, headmen, and 
warriors on the other part, by which it appears that one-half of .said claim was to be 
paid to said William M. Gwin, for his services in obtaining an adjustment of the 
claim by the government, and on this agreement the Second Auditor has allowed 
William M. Gwin $56,021.49, being the one-half of $112,042.09 as stated. This 
account is now suspended in your office, as we are informed, and we ai-e bound to 
thank you for delaying the matter thus far, although it is important to our people 
that they should be in annual receipt of the interest upon this sum which is justly 
due the Chickasaw nation." 

Such is the character of all the papers in this great mass, numbering 
more than five hundred pages. The Indians, from the beginning to the 
ending, sternly and steadily resisted the payment of this demand. It 
is among the most remarkable circumstances connected with the case, 
that there is not one particle of Indian testimony to sustain it — not a 
sincrle Indian of the whole tribe has ever been found to endorse its 
justice, or to say it ought to be paid. Their testimony is uniformly 
and unitedly against it. Their sense of its injustice may be gathered 
from the paper which I now read : — 

A PROTEST. 

Be it enacted hij fJie General Council of the Chiefs and Captains of the Chiclcasaw 
tribe of Indians, That the following pi-otest be adopted, and copies of it be trans- 
mitted to the Secretary of the Treasury and to the Secretary of the Home Depart- 
ment at Washington city : 

The chiefs, captains, headmen, and warriors of the Chickasaw tribe of Indians in 
full council assembled, have learned that Dr. William Gwin has filed in the Treasury 
Department of the United States, at Washington City, an account against the Chick- 
asaw fund, for $56,021.49, which account we understand, is based upon an agree- 
ment which, it is pretended, was made between the said Gwin and the Chickasaw 
tribe of Indians. This agreement, if any such exist, was made by some of our com- 
missioners or chiefs in a private manner, without the knowledge or consent of our 
nation in council, and has never been recognised, ratified, or confirmed by a general 
council of our tribe, and without this it cannot nor ought not to be binding upon 
our people. Our tribe cannot be bound by the acts of any individuals of the same, 
unless a special power for this purpose has been delegated to them by a general 
council. 

The tribe of Chickasaws, in full council assembled, after deliberation, repudiate 
the action of the individuals who entered into that agreement, if any was made, and 
deny that they had any authority to bind our people. 

We therefore solemnly protest against the payment of that account out of the 
Chickasaw funds, as, injustice to our people, we are bound to do. 

Done in open council of our tribe, and attested by our signatures, at Boiling 
Springs, Chickasaw District, July 13, 1849. 

Joel Kemp, Jack Uttubby, his X mark, ^ 

Captain Stross, pro wag, his X mark, Joh tu Chuck Attiea, his X mark, 

Captain Parker, his X mark, Vibbit un oyuh, his X mark, 

Captain Ned, his X mark, Eloss Amby, his X mark, 

HoTciiiE, his X mark, Billy, his X mark, 

Louis, his X mark. Pitman Colbert, 

Jerry, his X mark, Lemuel Colbert, 

Elbuh nu Turkey, his X mark, Jackson Frazier, 

William James, his X mark, Isaac Atberteaur, his X mark, 
Enaii no ti cho, his X mark, President of the council. 

Approved July 10, 1849. 

Edmund Peckers, his X mark. 

Chief, Chickasaw District, C. N. 

Attest : Cyrus Harris, Clerk Chickasaw District. 

Now, sir, I humbly submit, that all this mass of testimony, together 



THE EWING INVESTIGATION. 231 

with a great deal more which I have neither time nor patience to read, 
shouhi, at least, have put the Secretary on his guard. It should have 
been sufficient to elicit the most searching investigation into all the 
facts. We shall presently see whether it had that effect. 

I said, sometime since, that the contract was Avithout date, and so it 
was ; other testimony was resorted to to fix its date. A Mr. Charles 
Johnson, in a long affidavit now before me, gives somewhat in detail a 
history of Dr. Gwin's contracts with the Indians. It seems, that a gen- 
eral council had been called to obtain a ratification of Dr. Gwin's last 
agreement with a part of the Indian commissioners. There was great 
dissatisfaction among the people. Johnson concludes his affidavit 
thus : — 

" On the Jay the council met, the commissioners, in a body, resigned. I was not 
present, but understood there was much excitement. The power of attorney given 
to Dr. Gwin, in November, 1844, was said to be the main cause. Some two weeks 
after the commissioners resigned, they came to Fort Washita, and then signed the ncic 
power of attorney. In consequence of there having been much said respecting the 
papers, I requested them to permit me to take both powers to Major Armstrong, and 
gave them my word that the old one should be destroyed. I returned them both into 
the hands of Major Armstrong, who. in my presence, destroyed the old one. Colonel 
I'pshaw, Chickasaw agent, saw all the papers, and disapproved of both powers of 
attorney. At the time this affair took place, I was a trader in the Chickasaw country. 

Charles Johnson. 

" City of Philadelphia," ss. Sworn and subscribed before me this 29th day of 
January, A. D. 1850. "C. Brazier, 

Aid. and Ex-ojfcio Justice of the Feace." 

No wonder this power of attorney is without date. Signed officially 
by the commissioners two weeks after they had been compelled to resign., 
it would not have looked well to date it. No wonder the Indians in 
general council repudiated it, and said it had been executed without 
authority and in a private manner. Can it be, Mr. Speaker, that Messrs. 
Ewing and Johnson, in deciding to pay this money, could have over- 
looked papers like these ? 

But, sir, the case does not stop here. This paper, thus executed, was 
lost ; yes., lost. A copy was presented by Mr. Corcoran, of the firm of 
Corcoran & Riggs, to whom Dr. Gwin had transferred the claim, and on 
this copy, thus presented, the money was paid. 

Mr. Corcoran swore, to the best of his belief, that it was a correct 
copy. But there were subscribing witnesses, some six or eight of them, 
white men and Indians. And I do not learn that an attempt was ever 
made to obtain their testimony that the copy was correct. 

The gentlemen from Ohio and Virginia [Messrs. Vinton and Bayly] 
have dilated at great length, and with much eloquence and learning, on 
this, as an adjudicated case. We have been exhorted not to lay our 
profane hands on the sanctity of a judicial decision. We must needs 
let this thing pass, because it is res adjudicata. Let me ask the learned 
gentleman if there is a court in the civilized world where the plaintiff 
could introduce the bare copy of the most important paper, upon no 
other than his own affidavit as to its correctness, and that, too, when 
there were a dozen or more subscribing witnesses ? This a judicial pro- 
ceeding, indeed ! This the sacred ermine we are exhorted not to pro- 
fane ! I have about the same respect for such "judicial proceedings" 



232 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

that I have for a " Choctaw council," and about as much reverence for 
this sort of ermine as I have for an Indian blanket. 

Well, sir, the case had progressed to this point, when Mr. Ewing 
determined to pay it; but with that true cunning which is a part of 
himself, he determined to put the Attorney-General between him and 
danger ; so he called on him for his legal opinion. And here is the 
opinion of the learned gentleman, in all its length and breadth, height 
and depth. See it, sir, in all its vast proportions — its latitude and 
longitude, and be silent while I read, all ye ends of the earth ! Listen I 

Attorney-General's Office, 

Washington, January 3, 1850. 
Sir: In the cases of the claim of the Chickasaw nation against the United States, 
and of Messi's. Corcoran and Riggs, as assignees of William M. Gwin, submitted by 
you to this office, I have formed an opinion, after careful consideration, which my 
other engagements prevent ray doing more at this time than barely stating. Should 
it be your wish, I will avail myself of the very first leisure to assign my reasons. 

Ist. I am of opinion that the account of the nation is to be considered now as having 
been properly opened and restated, and that the balance found due by the accounting 
officers of $112,842, is properly chargeable to the appropriation for the subsistence 
and removal of Indians. 

2d. That the last contract with William M. Gwin, assigned to Corcoran and Riggs, 
is valid, and that out of the fund payable to the Chickasaws under the first head, 
whatever balance is due under that contract, should be paid to Corcoran and Riggs. 

With regard, your obedient servant, 

Reverdy Johnson. 
Hon. T. Ewing. 

Shades of our fathers defend us ! Was there ever such an opinion in 
such a case ? Here is a case involving an immediate payment of 
$112,842, and contingently a vastly larger sum. A case which has 
been decided against by some of the purest officers and ablest lawyers 
in the Union. Its history covers a period of some twelve or fourteen 
years, and is written on five hundred pages of foolscap, and the Attor- 
ney-General disposes of it in two short sentences : " I am of opinion 
that it ought to be paid." " I think Corcoran and Riggs ought to have 
half the money." There it is, well and nobly said. This learned 
opinion convinced the distinguished Secretary, and he penned this im- 
portant paper Veni, vidi, vici. See, sir, it is short, and exactly to the 
point. To use the poetic phrase of Mr. Winthrop, " it is as brief as the 
posy on a lady's ring." Harken ! all yea of little faith I 

Department of the Interior, 

January 4, 1850. 
The account will be stated, and the payment made in accordance with the Attor- 
ney-General's opinion within. 

T. Ewing, Secretary. 

This had well-nigh ended the whole matter ; but the Chickasaws were 
importunate. They interposed Johnson's affidavit and other like docu- 
ments. Ewing hesitated ; the thing looked barefaced. He may for 
once in his life have felt that there was such a thing as conscience. 
Again he called the learned Attorney-General to his aid, and that dis- 
tinguished functionary, with a promptitude and power which few men 
can master, responded in the following learned, powerful, and convincing 
argument : — 

Attorney-General's Office, 

nil March, 1850. 

Sir : In compliance with your request of the 8th January last, I have reexamined 



COMrROMISE MEASURES OF 1859. 283 

the cases of the Chickasaw nation against the United States, and of Corcoran and 
Riggs, assignees of William M. Gwin, upon which I gave you an opinion on the third 
of that month, and have most carefully considered the additional evidence and the 
arguments of the counsel for the parties concerned, and see no reason to change the 
opinion referred to. 

Indeed the eifect of the recent evidence is to satisfy me more fully, that that opi- 
nion was right; and I therefore again advise you accordingly. 

The press of business upon me still continuing, I must wait until the final adjourn- 
ment of the Supreme Court before I can give in detail the reasons which have 
led me to the conclusion to which I have comQ. Should you then desire it, they will 
be submitted with pleasure. 

I have the honor to be, with great regard, your obedient servant, 

Reverdy Johnson. 

Hon. Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Interior. 

This was conclusive; the Secretary was overcome; the attorneys stood 
aghast ; the Indians were floored ; the money was paid ; Corcoran and 
Riggs felt comfortable ; Dr. Gwin was satisfied, and the scene closed. 
I drop the curtain over the transaction with this single remark : Before 
many years shall have passed by, we will be called on to refund this ' 
money to the Chickasaws. 



THE OTHER SIDE OF "THE TRUE ISSUE 

STATED." 

A PAMPHLET WRITTEN BY THE HON. ALBERT G. BROWN UPON THE SUB- 
JECT OF THE COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1850. 

Two pamphlets, of thirty-two pages each, have recently made their 
appearance in great numbers among the people. These publications are 
entitled " The True Issue Stated, by a Union 3Ian," and they do me 
such gross injustice that I feel called upon to notice them. If the man 
in the mask, who styles himself " A Union Man," would throw off his 
disguise and appear in his real person, I should doubtless be spared the 
trouble of answering his gross perversions of truth. An exposure of his 
name and face would be the most conclusive proof that justice and fair 
dealing are not to be expected at his hands. 

The author of these pamphlets introduces my name in various places 
and connections, and it shall be my purpose to show how grossly he has 
perverted, or attempted to pervert, my acts and words. 

1st. Reference is made to the introduction of a bill by Mr. Preston 
of Virginia, to admit, as a state, into the Union, the whole of the ter- . 
ritory acquired from Mexico (to wit, California, Utah, and New Mexico), 
and an attempt is made to produce the impression that I contemplated 
voting for this proposition. The truth is that I spoke against it, and no 
one can read my speech without seeing at once that I never could have 
voted for Mr. Preston's bill, without having it amended in its most 
essential features. I spoke on the 10th of February, 1849 (see page 
120, Appendix to Cong. Globe). In that speech I said: — 

" All our propositions were voted down as they were successively presented, and 
by that party which claims a right to undivided dominion over these territories. 1 



234 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

never have, and never shall assent to the justice of this claim, and hereafter I -will vote 
to maintain the rights of the South in their broadest latitude, unless I shall plainly 
see that by an honorable and manly surrender of a portion of these rights, peace may 
be secured, and the Union rescued from its present perilous condition." 

It suited the purpose of "A Union Man" to leave this out. To have 
included it would have been to show the true temper of my speech — 
that I never would consent to give up the whole of the territories to the 
North. Then, as ever since, and before, I was ready to occupy the 
' territories jointly with the people of the North, and if this could not be 
done, to divide them fairly. The North claimed the whole. '"'' I never 
have, and never will, asse7it to the justice of this claim." 

With amendments to Mr. Preston's bill, such as would effectually have 
insured the South justice in the territories, I would have voted for it ; 
without these it never could have commanded my support. 

"A Union Man" entirely overlooks the important fact that Preston's 
bill proposed to confer on the people of California, hi/ act of Congress, 
the power to erect a state. I spoke against this at length, and yet the 
singular inference is drawn, that I ought to have voted for the admission 
of California, erected as she was into a state without the authority of 
Congress or of any other legislative body. It may be well seen how I 
could have voted to confer on the people of California the right to form 
. a state government, and yet, how, without inconsistency, I should oppose 
her admission when she sought it on the authority alone of irresponsible 
and unauthorized persons. It did not suit the jaundiced eye of " A 
Union Man," to see the difference between the two propositions. Sup- 
pose I had even voted for Preston's proposition, to confer on the people 
of California the power to erect a state government, would it thence 
, have involved me in an inconsistency to vote against the admission of a 
state, erected without authority, and by persons having no more right 
to do so than a nation of Hottentots ? But the truth is, I did not vote 
for the one or the other of these propositions, nor did I contemplate doing 
so at any time. 

I submit the following extracts from my speech on Preston's bill. 
Read them, and ask yourself what was "A Union Man's" intention in 
suppressing them : — 

" Here is a conquered people, possessing as yet, no political rights under our laws 
and Constitution, because not yet admitted to the rights of citizenship, and, what is 
worse, possessing no practical knowledge of the workings of our system of govern- 
mentj and knowing nothing of our institutions. The substantial question is, shall 
such a people give laws to our territories, and shape and mould their institutions for 
the present, and possibly for all time to come. * * * * The gentleman's 
bill gives to every white male inhabitant, over the age of twenty-one years, the right 
to vote, whether Spaniard, Mexican, Swede, Turk, or what not. * * * I submit to 
my honorable friend whether it would not be respectful, to say the least of it, towards 
his constituents and mine, to require these people, before they pass final judgment 
on our rights, to make an intimation in some form that they intend to become citi- 
zens, as well as inhabitants of the United States." [Seepage 120, Appendix to Cong. 
Globe, 1849.) 

It will be seen from these extracts, and more clearly by reading the 
whole speech, what my opinion of Mr. Preston's bill was, and that with- 
out amendments, such as should have avoided my objections, and given 
the South a hope of justice, I never could have voted for it. I confess 
to have felt then, as at all times, before and since, a strong anxiety to 



COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1850. 235 

see the question settled upon terms fair and just to all parties, and in 
this spirit I said in my speech on Preston's bill : '■'■ I am prepared to go 
to that point where conflicting interests and opinions may meet, and 
adjust this dangerous issue ujjon terms ho7iorahle to both sides, arid with- 
out any undue sacrifice hy either party.'' Preston's bill did not go to 
that point. I made my speech to show that it did not. If it had been 
so amended as to reach the point designated, then I should have voted 
for it. Without this, my speech shows that my vote would have been 
given against it. 

2d. The second point made by " A Union Man," is based on wdiat he 
calls the memorial of the Senators and Representatives from California. 
I know nothing of this memorial, and care less. My statement was 
made on the authority of eye-witnesses in the country at the time the 
so-called California constitution was formed, and upon the better autho- 
rity of General Riley's published proclamation. Upon these I stated, 
what is true, that thousands of foreigners were authorized to vote, and 
that they did vote. I make no qualification to the general declaration 
that the constitution of California was made by unauthorized persons — 
that among them were foreigners not speaking our language, knowing 
nothing of our laAvs, and caring nothing for our rights. 

3d. " A Union Man" next takes issue with me on my statement that 
" the fugitive slave bill," the same that is now the law of the land, is 
not, and never was, one of the " compromise bills." I repeat now, that 
it was not, and that it never was, a part of Mr. Clay's omnibus, or 
general compromise bill. "A Union Man" knows perfectly well, if he 
tnows anything at all on the subject, that the fugitive slave bill, the one 
that passed, did not come from the hands of Mr. Clay, or the hands of 
any other compromise man. He knows that Mr. Mason of Virginia, a 
friend of southern rights, and a bitter opponent of the compromise, 
introduced this bill, and that it was supported and carried through the 
Senate and House of Representatives, by Southern votes, and that 
without the votes of Southern Rights Democrats, it never could have 
been passed through either House of Congress. He knows that the Fugi- 
tive Slave Bill got but thirty-three Northern votes, three in the Senate, 
and thirty in the House. All the rest, one hmidred and forty-four in 
number, either voted against it, or fled from their seats to avoid the 
responsibility of voting. All these things "A Union Man" knows 
perfectly well. Why conceal the facts if he did not mean to deceive the 
people ? 

The Fugitive Slave Bill is not a gift from the North, either as a part 
of the Compromise or otherwise. It was introduced by an Anti-com- 
promise Southern Rights Democrat, and it was carried through both 
Houses of Congress by Southern votes, and without the aid of the ene- 
mies of the Compromise it never would have passed. 

4th. The fourth point made against me is that I was a member of a 
committee in Congress that reported a bill to abolish the slave trade in 
the District of Columbia, in 1849. It is true that I was a member of 
the committee, made so by the Speaker, without my consent; but it is 
not true that I reported the bill, or even consented to its being reported. 
It is not true that I voted for it after it was reported, or ever consented 
or promised to vote for it. 

In this, as in other cases, a "A Union Man" publishes what he calls 



236 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

extracts from my speeches, taking care to suppress every word that does 
not suit his purpose. Why were paragraphs like these left out : 

Mr. Brown said, "he had always believed that in his representative character, he 
was called upon to represent the expressed will and wishes of the people of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, having, at the same time, due regard to the rights of the people of the 
semral slates, and to the restrictions of the Constitution of the United States." And 
again, " he did not believe that the strong party in Congress had a right to pass any 
law for the District without respect to the wishes of the people of the District, and 
without respect to the Constitution and the rights of the people outside of the Dis- 
trict, but that in all this branch of their public charge they should have an eye 
strictly to the Constitution and to the rights of the ichole people." And then again : 
"In acting upon a petition from the people of this District, his first object was to 
inquire how far he might go and still remain within the limits of the Constitution, 
and then how far he might go without infringing upon the deed of cession from 
Maryland and Virginia. These limits being ascertained, he should be prepared to 
go for any law desired by the people of the District, which did not require these fixed 
limits to be transcended." 

These passages have been omitted by a "A Union Man." lie could 
not show them, without disclosing the fact that then, as now, I insisted 
upon an observance of the constitutional rights of the whole people. Were 
these rights respected when Congress enacted that the master's slave 
"should become liberated and free," if he took him to the District, "for 
the purpose of selling him?" 

I extract again from the same speech : — 

Mr. Brown said : " If gentlemen desire it of him, he would now tell them that he 
felt the necessity, on the part of the South, of standing together upon every question 
involving the right of property in slaves, the slave trade, and Abolition in all its 
forms. He knew that they must stand together for defence : therefore, as the South 
vote so he should vote, till the? pressure from without should be withdrawn. The 
South acted together upon the principle of self-protection and self-preservation. 
They stood for protection against destruction and annihilation. He knew not the 
motive which prompted this outward pressure ; he felt its existence, and he knew 
that the South acted purely on the defensive ; they merely warded off the blow 
directed against their peace — their lives. Such were his motives for voting with the 
South. And he now said to all who were opposed to him or his country. Withdraw 
your pressure; cease to to agitate this question ; let us alone ; do whatsoever you think 
be right without endangering us, and you will find that we, too, are ready to do right." 

Mr. Brown trusted he had not been misunderstood ; for it was known that, to a 
Southern member, this was a delicate question. He had expressed his honest views — 
views which he desired to carry out in good faith. He did very well know, that if 
the South were let alone — if they were not positively ill-treated, the North might be 
assured they would come up and do what was right. They stood together now for 
their own preservation, and nothing less than unity in their councils could be ex- 
pected of them in the present crisis. If individual members did not always vote 
exactly according to their views of right upon these questions, it was because of this 
known, and now universally acknowledged, necessity of unity and concert among 
ourselves. When a sleepless and dangerous enemy stood at our doors, we felt the 
necessity of acting together. Let that enemy withdraw — let us out into the open 
sunshine, where we could look upon the same sun that you look upon — where the 
air, the land, the water, everything could be seen in common, and enjoyed in com- 
mon — and we should be ready to meet you as brethren, and legislate with you as 
brethren. But so long as you keep up this pressure, these endless, ceaseless, ruth- 
less assaults upon us, we must stand together for defence. In this position we must 
regard you as our enemies, and we are yours. 

These, and other kindred expressions, were meanly suppressed, because 
it would not do to disclose the fact, that then, as now, I stood by the 
South, and with the South, in the defence of Southern interests, Southern 
rights, and Southern honor. 



COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1850. 237 

This bill of 1849, ■whicli I did not introduce, did not in any way sup- 
port, and for which I 7iever would have voted, except (as stated at the * 
time) in company with the great body of southern members, and not 
then, unless certain constitutional impediments had been first removed — 
this bill only punished the overt act of selling or offering to sell, by the 
fine and imprisonment of the master or owner of the slave. The bill, 
as passed into a law, by the Compromisers, punishes the " purpose" or 
intention to sell by setting the slave free. It is the act of setting the 
slave at liberty, because his master intends to sell him, that I complain * 
of, as the special outrage inflicted by this Compromise. 

These are the material points made against me in pamphlet number 
ONE. The positions against me in the second number are: 

1st. That I voted, on two occasions, with certain Abolitionists in 
Congress — first, on the Utah bill, and next on the Texas boundary bill. • 
For both of these votes I had good and sufficient reasons, and I have so 
often given them to the public that I deem it useless to repeat them at 
length. Let a very brief statement suffice. And first, as regards the 
Texas boundai-y bill. This bill, and that to give a territorial govern- 
ment to New Mexico, were included in one proposition. I could not, 
therefore, vote for, or against the one, without voting for or against the 
other. The Abolitionists desired to take from Texas about 80,000 
square miles of the territory south of 36° 30', and pay her nothing; I 
was not willing to give up one inch of territory south of that line, or pay 
anything if it was taken ; and hence, for very different reasons, we were 
brought together in voting against a proposition to take forty-four 
thousand square miles of territory, and pay ten millions of dollars. And 
then, as regards Utah. This was the last of the territorial bills that 
came up for consideration, and for many reasons I did not think it a 
matter of much consequence. If justice had been done us in the other 
territories, I might have voted for this bill. Utah lies entirely above 
36° 30', and if our rights had been respected south of that line, I should 
not have contended against giving up the territory north of it. But if 
our rights were not acknowledged south of the line, I would not volun- 
tarily abandon our claim north of it. As many Free-Soilers as felt 
willing to risk the Mexican law abolishing slavery in the territories voted 
for this Utah bill. Those who insisted upon the Wilmot proviso, in 
terms, voted against it. But since the bill has passed they are all satisfied, 
and they will remain so as long as the Mexican law has the EFFECT of 
excluding slavery, and whenever it fails in that effect, if it ever does, 
they will fall back upon the Wilmot proviso. These territories, Utah 
and New Mexico, were organized with the distinct understanding among 
all northern men, and with many southern men, that slavery was ' 
already excluded by the law of Mexico. And without this understand- 
ing, it is well known that northern senators and representatives would 
not have voted for these bills. I could not, and would not make myself 
a party to such an understanding, and for this, as well as for other 
reasons, I voted against these territorial bills. 

Why was not this Mexican law repealed ? I will show the reason ; 
and I will show, moreover, that " A Union Man" acts the hypocrite when 
he charges it as a FAULT against me that I voted M'ith the Abolitionists. 
Is not "A Union Man" the friend of General Foote ? — and, if so, how . 
does he excuse such votes as the following ? Colonel Davis introduced 



238 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

an amendment, as follows, the design of which was to repeal the law^ of 
Mexico — abolishing slavery in the territories acquired from Mexico. 
Here is Davis's amendment : — 

" And that all laws and usages existing in said territory, at the date of its acqui- 
sition by the United States, which deny or obstruct the right of any citizen of the 
United States to remove to and reside in said territory with any species of property 
legally held in any of the states of this Union, be and are hereby declared null and 
void." 

The following is the vote : — 

Yeas— Messrs. Atchison, Barnwell, Bell, Berrien, Butler, Clemens, Davis of Mis- 
sissippi, Dawson, Downs, Houston, Hunter, King, Mangum, Morton, Pratt, Rusk, 
Sebastian, Soule, Turney, Underwood, and Yulee— 22. 

Nays— Messrs. Badger, Baldwin, Benton, Bradbury, Bright, Cass, Chase, Clarke, 

Clay, Cooper, Davis of Massachusetts, Dayton, Dickinson, Dodge of Wisconsin, 

» Dodge of Iowa, Felch, Foote, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, Jones, Miller, Norris, Pearce, 

Seward, Shields, Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Upham, Wales, Walker, and Whit- 

conib — 33. 

It will be seen that twenty-two senators voted for this amendment — 
all of them from the South, and that thirty-three voted against it — 
among them Chase, Hale, Hamlin, Seward, and every other Free- 
Soiler and Abohtionist in the Senate, and it will be further seen that 
V General Foote voted in the same list with these Free-Soilers and ^160- 
litionists. 

Nor is this all. On the 28th of August, 1850, Mr. Atchison moved to 
lay the bill to abolish the slave trade in the District of Columbia on the 
table. General Foote voted with Hale, Chase, Baldwin, and other 
' Abolitionists and Free-Soilers, against laying it on the table. 

And again, on the 10th of September, 1850, the question being on 
striking out the first section of this same bill. General Foote again 
voted with Chase, Hamlin, Seward, and other Free-Soilers, against 
striking it out. Here is the first section of the bill : — 

" Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in 
Congress assembled, That from and after the first day of January, eighteen hundred 
and 'fifty-one, it shall not be lawful to bring into the District of Columbia any slave 
whatever for tlie purpose of being sold, or for the purpose of being placed in depot, 
to be subsequently transferred to any other state or place to be sold as merchandise. 
And if any slave shall be brought into said district by its owner, or by the authority 
or consent of its owner, contrary to the provisions of this act, such slave shall, there- 
upon, become liberated and free." 

The following is the vote on the motion to strike out this section : — 

Yeas— Messrs. Atchison, Berrien, Butler, Davis of Mississippi, Dawson, Downs, 
Houston, Hunter, King, Mason, Morton, Pratt, Rusk, Sebastian, Soule, Turney, Un- 
derwood, Yulee — 18. . 

Nays— Messrs. Badger, Baldwin, Bell, Benton, Bright, Chase, Clay, Davis_ of 
Massachusetts, Dayton, Dickinson, Dodge of Wisconsin, Dodge of Iowa, Ewing, 
* Felch, Foote, Greene, Hamlin, Jones, Mangum, Norris, Phelps, Seward, Shields, 
Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Wales, Walker, Whitcomb, Winthrop— 30. 

It will be seen that all the ayes are from the South, and that "A 
Union Man's" favorite candidate for governor voted again with the 
Abolitionists. ^ , . . 

My object in presenting these votes of General Foote, is not to criticise 
them, but to show the hypocrisy of "A Union Man,]' who holds up my 
votes, and invokes the condemnation of my constituents upon them, 



COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1850. 239 

whilst he carefully avoids the like votes of his own favorite- candidate. 
If it be a sin in me to have voted with Giddings and Tuch, is it any less 
u sin in Foote to have voted with Seward and Hale? 

But to proceed to point No. 2. This pamphlet contains what purports 
to be extracts from my speeches, and in making them up to suit his 
purposes, "A Union Man" has been guilty of the grossest frauds. He 
not only suppresses material parts of my speeches, without which, he well 
knows, the other parts will not be understood, but he divides para- 
graphs, sticks the divided parts together, drops sentences, and leaves 
out whatever does not suit his purposes, and all with the intention, as 
he well knows, of misleading the public. In all my life, I have never 
seen truth so grossly perverted, or falsehood and slander more impu- 
dently suggested. 

The intention of this writer is to show that I am a Disunionist. To 
this charge I give the lie direct, and leave this masked calumniator to 
his farther proof. On this point I select, at random, the following para- 
graphs from my speeches, and ask an indulgent public why these things 
have been suppressed, if the intention of "A Union Man" was not 
fraudulent? If it was not his purpose to impose upon the public, why 
did he suppress the truth ? From my speech on Preston's bill, February 
10th, 1850, poge 120, Appendix Coyigressional Globe: — 

"Let it (the Uuion) fulfil the high purposes of its creation, and the people will 
preserve it at any and every sacrifice of blood and treasure, and nowhere will these 
sacrifices be more freely made than in the South." 

" The Union of these states rests on a foundation solid and sacred, the affections 
of the people of all the states. Be careful how you tamper with that foundation, lest 
you destroy it, and thus destroy the Uniox itself. Let the Union dispense equal and 
• exact justice to all — special favors to none, and not one murmur of complaint will 
ever come up here from the patriotic sons of the 'sunny South.' We despise 
injustice of every kind. In the emphatic words of a distinguished chieftain, 'we ask 
no favors and shrink from no responsibility.' " 

Why did '-A Union Man" pass over these and other like expressions 
in that speech ? 

"A Union Man" commences one of his extracts with the words, " Have 
we any reason to fear a dissolution of the Union V and then has the 
meanness to suppress these words, which are next after them, in the same 
paragraph, and in actual connection with them: "Look at the question 
dispassionately, and answer to yourselves the important question, can 
anything be expected from the fears of the southern people ?" Why 
were these words left out ? Simply, because to have shown them would 
have been to show that I had but warned the North not to calculate on 
the cowardice of the southern people. 

And again, in the same paragraph, these words are left out: "We 
have not been slow in manifesting our devotion to the Union. In all 
our national conflicts we have obeyed the dictates of duty, the behests 
of patriotism — our money has gone freely, the lives of our people have 
been freely given up, their blood has washed many a blot from the 
national escutcheon, we have loved the Union, and we love it yet, but 
not for this, nor a thousand such Unions, will we suffer dishonor at your 
hands." 

And again, these words are extracted, "/ tell you, sir, sooner than 
submit, we would dissolve a thousand such Unions as this," and with 
this "A Union Man" stops. Why did he not include the very next 



240 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

words, " Sooner than allow our slaves to become our masters, we 
would lay Avaste our country with fire and sword, and with our broken 
spears dig for ourselves honorable graves." Why were the first words 
taken and the next left out? Because, if all had appeared, it would 
have been seen that it was bondage to our own slaves that I gave warn- 
ing we would not submit to. It did not suit "A Union Man" to tell 
the truth, and so he lied, by suppressing the truth. 

Again, "A Union Man" extracts a part of a paragraph as follows: — 
" Whether the people will submit to this high-handed proceeding (the 
admission of California), I do not know; but for myself, I am for re- 
sistance," &c. Here I charge that this writer not only garbles my 
speech, but by inserting the words (the admission of California), he sug- 
gests a positive falsehood. These words were not used by me, do not 
appear in the printed copy of my speech, and were interlined by this 
writer for no other purpose than to suggest a falsehood. The "high- 
handed proceeding" alluded to by me, had no reference to the admission 
of California, but referred directly to the conduct of the President of 
the United States, as was stated at the time, in attempting " to make a 
new state without the aid of Congress, and in defiance of the Constitu- 
tion." This was the " high-handed proceeding" which I pledged mj^self 
to "resist," and that pledge I have redeemed to the utmost of my 
ability. This whole speech will be found on page 258 to 261 Cong. 
Globe, 1850. 

In addition to the above, I beg leave to submit, from the same speech, 
the following extracts. Why did "A Union Man" omit them ?— 

" Oh ! gentlemen, pause, I beseech you, in this mad career. The South cannot, 
will not, dare not submit to your demands. The consequences to her are terrible 
beyond description. To you forbearance would be a virtue — virtue adorned with 
love, truth, justice, patriotism. To some men I can make no appeal, * * * but 
to sound men, just men, patriotic men, I do make an earnest appeal, that they array 
themselves on the side of the C7onsi'(Y»/i'o«, and save the C/"nio«. * * * Let those 
who desire to save the Constitution and the Union, come out from among the wicked, 
and array themselves on the side of justice— and here in this hall, erected by our 
fathers, and dedicated to liberty and 'law, we will make new voavs, enter into new 
covenants to stand together and fight the demon of discord, until death shall summon 
us to another and a better world." * * * _ * • i j 

" Before the first fatal step is taken, remember that we have interests involved 
which we cannot relinquish, rights which it were better to die with than live without. 
The direct pecuniary interest involved is twenty hundred millions of dollars, and yet 
the loss of this is the least of the calamities you are entailing upon us. Our country 
is to be made desolate, we are to be driven from our homes— the homes hallowed by 
all the sacred associations of families and friends, we are to be sent like a people 
accursed of God to wander through the land, homeless, houseless and friendless, or 
what is ten thousand times worse than this, than these, than all, remain in a country 
now prosperous and happy, and see ourselves, our wives and our children, degraded 
to a social position with the black race. These, these are the frightful, terrible con- 
sequences you would entail upon us. I tell you, sir, sooner than submit, we 
WOULD dissolve A thousand SUCH UNIONS AS THIS— sooner than allow our slavcsto 
become our masters, we would lay waste our country with fire and sword, and with 
our broken spears, dig for ourselves honorable graves." 

Is there a southern heart that does not throb a fervent response to 
these sentiments ? and is there an honest eye that does not detect the 
baseness which prompted "A Union Man," when he tore froni this para- 
graph the single sentence : "I tell you, sir, sooner than submit, we would 
, dissolve a thousand such Unions as this?" Did he not know that he 
was perpetrating a fraud ? On the same page from which this extract 



COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1850. 241 

is taken, the following may be found. Does any one suppose it escaped 
the eye of "A Union Man ?"— 

" I repeat, we deprecate disunion. Devoted to the Constitution — reverencing the 
Union — holding in sacred remembrance the names, the deeds, and the glories of our 
common and illustrious ancestors, there is no ordinary ill to which \ye would not bow 
sooner than dissolve the political association of these states. If there was any point 
short of absolute ruin to ourselves, and desolation to our country, at which these 
aggressive measures would certainly stop, we would say at once go to that point and 
give us peace." And again — 

" I warn gentlemen if they persist in their present course of policy, that the sin of 
disunion is on their heads, not ours. If a man assaults me, and I strike in self- 
defence, I am no violator of the public peace. If one attacks me with such fury as 
to jeopardize my life, and I slay him in the conflict, I am no murderer. If you 
attempt to force upon us sectional desolation, and — what to us is infinitely worse — 
social degradation, we will resist you, and if in the conflict of resistance the Union 
is dissolved, we are not responsible. If any man charges me with harboring senti- 
ments of disunion, he is greatly mistaken. If he says that I prefer disunion to sec- i 
tional and social degradation, he does me no more than justice." * * * 

" Do not mistake me ; I do not say that our exclusion from the territories would 
of itself justify disunion. I do not say that the destruction of the slave trade in the 
District of Columbia, nor even its abolition here, nor yet the prohibition of the slave 
trade among the states, would justify it. It may be, that not one, or two, nor all of 
these combined, would justify disunion. These are Init initiatory steps, they lead 
you on to the mastery over us, and you shall not take these steps." 

I might show many other extracts from this same speech, but surely 
these may suffice. To those who woitUI know more about it, I w^ould 
say, " Look to the Congressional Globe, of January 30th, 1850, page 
257, and read the w^hole speech. The book may be found in the office 
of the Probate Clerk, where I caused it to be placed for your 
inspection." 

If more shall be desired in refutation of the slander, that I sought a 
dissolution of the Union, allow me to present an extract from my speech 
of August 8, 1850, page 1550 Cong. Globe. And here let me remark 
that when these speeches were made, no murmur of complaint was heard 
against them. Then they were patriotic enough ; now they are rank ' 
treason, according to my enemies. 

" There is one other matter to which I must advert. It is become quite too 
common of late, for certain political censors, in and out of Congress, to speak of 
southern men who demand justice for the South, as ultras ; and if we persist in our 
demands, and can neither be bribed or brow-beaten int(j acquiescence with northern 
wrongs, the next step is to whistle us down the wind, as traitors and disunionists. It 
is not because I fear the effects of charges like these on the minds of my constituents, 
that I now speak. They have known me for many long years. I have served them 
here and elsewhere, and if there is any earthly power to persuade them that I am a , 
disunionist, or a traitor to my country, I would scorn to receive office at their hands. 
I allude to charges like this, that I may hold them up to public scorn and reproba- 
tion. The miserable reptiles who sting the South, while they nestle in her bosom, 
are the authors of these base calumnies. Sooner or later they will be spurned as the 
veriest spaniels who ever crouched at the footstool of poAver." 

So I spoke on the 8th of August, 1850, and so I say now. It is by 
such reptiles as this " Union Man," that the South is stung; and when ' 
the South learns to plant her foot upon them and crush them, she may 
look for justice, and not till then. 

A speech made by me at "Ellwood Springs," in November, 1850, has 
been the subject of extensive misrepresentation and slander. "A Union 
Man" could not of course speak the truth in regard to it. He leaves 
10 



242 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

out sentences, and puts others together to suit his own false purposes. 
For instance, he makes nie say " this justice was denied us in the adjust- 
ment bills that passed Congress." " I am for resistance ; I am for that 
sort of resistance which shall be effective and final." These two sen- 
tences are more than two entire pages apart in the speech as delivered 
bj me, and have no relation to each other. The words "this justice 
was denied us in the adjustment bills Avhich passed Congress," are im- 
mediately followed bv the words, "But we are not to infer that the 
fault was either in the Union or the Constitution. The Union is 
strength, and if not wickedly diverted from its purposes, will secure us 
that domestic tranquillity which is our birthright. The Constitution is 
our shield and our buckler, and needs only to be fairly administered to 
dispense equal and exact justice to all parts of this great confederacy." 
Why were not the words extracted as they were spoken ? Why put two 
sentences togeth-er taken from different pages, having no relation to one 
another, and leave out all that Avas said in connection with the one and 
with the other ? Was there ever a more impudent attempt at fraud and 
imposition ? 

This writer says, I demanded justice for every state and for all sec- 
tions, and that I added, " If the Union cannot yield to the demand, I 
am against the Union. If the Constitution does not secure it, I am 
against tlie Constitution." And he would, from his manner of stating 
what I said, leave the inference that I was against the Union and the 
Constitutio7i, because they had not secured us justice. I said, in this 
precise connection, "We are not to infer that the fault is in the Union, 
or the Constitution. The Union is strength, and the Constitution is our 
shield and our buckler." But it did not suit the purposes of "A Union 
Man" to quote these words. He could not have seen the words that he 
did quote without seeing these also ; they were, therefore, intentionally 
omitted. 

It is asserted that I made certain demands of the federal government, 
and took the ground if these demands were not complied with, "all con- 
nection with the Northern States ought to be dissolved." The demands 
are not set forth, and the reader is left to infer that there was some- 
thing monstrous and unreasonable in these demands. The truth is, that 
I have demanded nothing, have proposed nothing, but what the southern 
friends of the compromise say we now have. All I ask is that they 
will join us in procuring from their northern friends, an acknowledg- 
ment that their interpretation of the compromise is right. Here are the 
demands; is there anything unreasonable or unjust in them? — 

"We should demand a restoration of the hiws of Texas, in Jicec verba, over the 
country whinh has been taken from her and added to New Mexico. In other words, 
we should demand the clear and undisputed right to carry our slave property to 
that country, and have it jirotected and secured to us after we get it there; and we 
should demand a contimiation of this right and of this security and protection. 

" We should demand the same right to go into all the territories with our slave pro- 
perty, that citizens of the free states have to go with any species of property, and we 
should demand for our property the same protection that is given to the property of 
our northern brethren. No more, nor less. 

" Wo should demand that Congress abstain from all interference with slavery in 
territories, in the District of Columbia, in the states, on the high seas, or anywhere 
else, except to give it protection, and this protection should be the same that is given 
to other property. 

" We should demand a continuation of the present fugitive slave law, or some other 



COMrROMISE MEASURES OF 1850. 243 

law which should be effective in carrying out the mandate of the Constitution for the 
delivery of fugitive slaves. 

" We should demand that no state be denied admission into the Union, because her 
constitution tolerated slavery." 

Is there anything asked for in all this -which the friends of the com- 
promise are not constantly insisting we now have ? And yet the writer 
of this pamphlet falsely asserts that I have demanded a repeal of the » 
compromise, and the substitution of other legislation in its place. No 
such thing is true. I have only asked that the friends of the compro- 
mise at the North should execute it as its southern friends say they 
understand it ; and why shall southern men shrink from this demand if 
they are sincere in their declarations ? They know perfectly well that 
their interpretation is repudiated by their northern allies, and therefore 
it is that they shrink from the test of making the demand. 

Mississippi has declined making any demands, and of course my pro- 
position falls to the ground. No one could suspect me of the extreme 
folly of urging these or any other demands; after the state had decided 
that she would do nothing. 

I present these extracts from the Ellwood Springs speech : — 

'• I have great confidence that the government may be brought back to its original 
purity. I have great confidence that the government Avill again be administered in 
subordination to the Constitution ; that we shall be restored to our equal position in 
the confederacy, and that our rights will again be respected as they were from 1787 
to 1819. This being done, I shall be satisfied — nothing short of this will satisfy 
me. I can never consent to take a subordinate position. By no act or word of 
mine shall the South ever be reduced to a state of dependence on the North. I will 
cling to the Union, and utter its praise with my last breath, but it must be a Union 
of equals ; it must be a Union in which mj- state and my section is equal in rights 
to any other section or state. I will not consent that the South shall become the / 
Ireland of this country. Better, far, that we dissolve our political connection with 
the North than live connected with her as her slaves or vassals. The fathers of the 
republic counselled us to live together in peace and concord, but those venerable 
sages and patriots never counselled us to surrender our equal position in the Union. 

"Let me say to you, in all sincerity, fellow-citizens, that I am no disunionist. If 
I know my own heart, I am more concerned about the means of preserving the Union, • 
than I am about the means of destroying it. The danger is not that we shall dissolve 
the Union, by a bold and manly vindication of our rights ; but rather that we shall, ' 
in abandoning our rights, abandon the Union also. So help me God, I believe the 
submissionists are the very worst enemies of the Union." 

Why was all this passed over in silence ? 

I might show how, in many other instances, I have been treated with 
the same gross injustice which has marked those that I have now 
pointed out ; but to pursue the subject farther would be tedious and 
unprofitable. 

" There are my speeches, and there my votes, I stand by and defend 
them. You say for these my country will repudiate me. I demand a 
trial of the issue.'' This was my language in the first speech made by 
me after my return from Washington. I repeat it now. I said then, 
as I say now, that the charge laid against me that I was, or ever had • 
been, for disunion or secession, was and is f.\lse and slanderous. 

I stand by my votes as they were given, and by my speeches as they 
were made. I am not responsible for speeches made for me by others ; 
nor will I consent to be tried on the motives which my enemies charge 
to have influenced my votes. It is easy to publish garbled extracts 



244 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

from any man's speeches, and it is quite as easy to attribute to any 
man bad motives for his votes. I am not to be tried, thanks to a free 
government, in a Star Chamber, before perjured judges, but at the 
ballot box, by a free people. 

I am not surprised to find myself assailed with malignity, and least 
of all docs it surprise me that these assaults come from Natchez. I was 
never a favorite with certain men in that city, and if it should ever fall 
out that they speak well of me, I shall indeed wonder what great sin I 
have committed against republican institutions. 

When I heard that a large sum of money had been subscribed by my 
enemies, and that my defeat was one of the great ends to be obtained 
by it, I conjectured that the old Federalists were on their walk, and that 
a plentiful shower of slander and defamation might be expected. I have 
not been disappointed. These attacks will, no doubt, be kept up until 
after the election, and many of them will, necessarily, go unanswered. 
I cannot be everywhere in person, and I have not the means of publish- 
ing and circulating documents against this regular combination, con- 
trolling, as it does, its thousands and its tens of thousands of dollars. 

It ought to be borne in mind how easy it is to misconstrue and mis- 
represent the acts and speeches of a public man. Taking into account 
the length of time that I have been in the public service, it is rather a 
matter of surprise with me that my enemies have found so little to carp 
at. The circumstances under which I have spoken or acted arc, of 
course, very conveniently forgotten, and nothing is remembered but such 
words or acts as may be turned to my disadvantage. These are eagerly 
seized upon by my enemies, and held up to public gaze ; and if the 
public indignation fails to rise, they then torture my words, and give 
them forced constructions, so as to make me say what, indeed, I never 
thought of saying. No man ever yet spoke so explicitly as to escape 
the misconceptions of the weak, or the misconstructions of the corrupt 
and designing. Not even the inspired writers have escaped this com- 
mon fate. The Atheist proves, to his own satisfaction at least, that 
there is no God, and, taking the Bible for his text, he undertakes to 
prove that the Bible is a fiction. Volney, Voltaire, and Tom Paine, 
have each made his assault upon the divinity of the Saviour ; each has 
had his proselytes ; and each based his argument upon the words of 
inspired writers. These things being true, what folly it is for an ordi- 
nary man to hope for escape from false interpretations, misconstructions 
and misrepresentations ! I know m}'- own meaning better than any other 
man, and after sixteen years of public service, during all of which time 
I never practised a fraud or deception upon the public, I confront my 
enemies, and tell them they slander me, when they charge that I am 
now, or ever have been, the secret or open advocate of disunion or 
secession. 

I am no more a secessionist, because I think a state has a right to 
secede, than are m^^ enemies revolutionists, because they maintain the 
right of revolution. 

In days gone by, I denounced the United States Bank, the protective 
tariff, and other acts of the general government, without incurring the 
charge of being a disunionist. I opposed and denounced the compro- 
mise, but I did not thereby make mj^self a disunionist. I thought, in 
the beginning, that it inflicted a positive injury upon the South, and I 



COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1850. 245 

think so now. This opinion is Avell settled, and is not likely to undergo 
any material change. I gave my advice freely, but never obtrusively, 
as to the course which I thought our state should pursue. That advice 
has not been taken. Mississippi has decided that submission to, or 
acquiescence in, the compromise measures, is her true policy. As a 
citizen, I bow to the judgment of my state. I wish her judgment had 
been otherwise ; but from her decision I ask no appeal. Neither as a 
citizen nor as a representative, would I disturb or agitate this or any 
other question after it had been settled by the deliberate judgment of 
the people. 

I never have, and I never will introduce the subject of slavery into 
Congress. When it has been introduced by others, I have defended the 
rights of my constituents, and, if re-elected, I will do so again. 

In the approaching election, I ask the judgment of my constituents 
on my past course. I claim no exemption from the frailties common to 
all mankind. That I have erred is possible, but that the interests of 
my constituents have suffered from my neglect, or that I have inten- 
tionally done any act or said anything to dishonor them in the eyes of 
the world, or to bring discredit upon our common country, is not true. 
In all that I have said or done, my aim has been for the honor, the 
happiness, and the true glory of my state. 

I opposed the compromise with all the power I possessed. I opposed 
the admission of California, the division of Texas, the abolition of the 
slave trade in the District of Columbia, and I voted against the Utah 
bill. I need scarcely say that I voted for the Fugitive Slave bill, and 
aided, as far as I could, in its passage. I opposed the compromise. 

I thought, with Mr. Clay, that "it gave almost everything to the 
North, and to the South nothing but her honor." 

I thought, with Mr. Webster, that the " South got what the North 
lost — and that was nothing at all." 

I thought, with Mr. Brooks, that the " North carried everything be- 
fore her." 

I thought, with Mr. Clemens, that " there was no equity to redeem 
the outrage." 

I thought, with Mr. Downs, that "it was no compromise at all." 

I thought, with Mr. Freeman, that " the North got the oyster and we 
got the shelL" 

I thought, at the last, what General Foote thought, at the first, that 
"it contained none of the features of a genuine compromise." 

And finally, and lastly, I voted against it, and spoke against it, 
BECAUSE it unsettled the balance of power between the two sections of 
the Union, inflicted an injury upon the South, and struck a blow at that 
political equality of the states and of the people, on which the Union is 
founded, and without a maintenance of which the Union cannot be pre- 
served. 

I spoke against it, and voted against it, in all its forms. I was 
against it as an Omnibus, and I was against it in its details. I fought 
it through from Alpha to Omega, and I would do so again. I denounced 
it before the people, and down to the last hour I continued to oppose it. 
The people have decided that the state shall acquiesce, and with me 
that decision is final. I struggled for what I thought was the true 
interest and honor of my constituents, and if for this they think me 



246 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

worthy of condemnation, I am ready for the sacrifice. For opposing 
the compromise, I have no apologies or excuses to offer; I did that 
which my conscience told me was right, and the only regret I feel is 
that my opposition was not more availing. 

A. G. Brown. 

Gallatin, September 15, 1851. 

Note. — As the district will, no doubt, be flooded with all manner of publications, 
and traversed by all sorts of speakers, 1 must again remind my friends that the Con- 
gressional Globe, containing a perfect record of all my votes, speeches, motions 
* and resolutions, may be found in the clerk's offices of each county. It was placed 
there by me for inspection, and by it, as the official record, I am willing to be tried. 
When my enemies are found peddling newspapers and pamphlets, without names, 
giving accounts of my actings and sayings, I hope my friends will appeal to this 
record, and insist that I shall be tried by that, and not by the statements of my 
enemies. -^- "• "■ 



SPEECH 

DELIVERED AT ELLWOOD SPRINGS, NEAR PORT GIBSON, MISS., 

NOVEMBER 2, 1850. 

Mr. Brown said : — Fellow-Citizens : I shall speak to you to-day, 
not as Whigs, not as Democrats, but as citizens of a common country 
having a common interest and a common destiny. 

The events of the last ten months have precipitated a crisis in our 
public affairs which many of the wisest and sagcst among us have fondly 
hoped was yet distant many long years. 

It is not my purpose to enter upon a critical review of the late most 
extraordinary conduct of the President and of Congress. I am not at 
liberty to suppose, that a people whose dearest rights have been the 
object of attack for ten months and more, have failed to keep themselves 
informed of the more prominent events as they have transpired. We 
ought, to-day, to inquire what is to be done in the future, rather than 
what has been done in the past. 

I confess my inability to* counsel a great people as to the best mode 
of proceeding in an emergency like the present. Instead of imparting 
advice to others, I feel myself greatly in need of instruction. But, I 
will not on this account refuse to contribute an expression of my own 
best reflections, when, as in this instance, I am called upon to do so. 

To the end that you may clearly understand my conclusions, it will 
be necessary for me to present a brief summary of the events which 
have brought us to our present perilous condition. To go no further 
back than*the last year, we shall find that in Mississippi, at least, the 
great body of the people were aroused to a sense of the impending danger. 
At a meeting assembled in the town of Jackson early in the last year, 
^ both Whigs and Democrats united in an address to the country, giving 
assurance that the time had come for action. 

Gentlemen of high character, of great popularity, and merited influ- 
ence, headed this meeting ; a convention of the state was recommended, 
and every indication was given to the country that, in the judgment of 



SPEECH AT ELLWOOD SPRINGS. 247 

these gentlemen, the time had actually come for bold and decisive 
action. This movement was seconded in almost every county in the 
state ; and wherever the people assembled, delegates were appointed to 
a general state convention ; and in every instance, so far as I am 
informed, these delegates were chosen from the two great political 
parties, one-half Whigs and the other half Democrats. The contem- 
plated convention assembled at Jackson, in October, and recommended ' 
a convention of the Southern States, to assemble at Nashville, at some 
future day, to be agreed upon among the states. The Mississippi move- 
ment was responded to with great unanimity in several of our sister 
states — in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. 
There seemed to be for a time, a very general and united sentiment in 
favor of the proposed convention at Nashville. The scheme was not with- 
out warm and influential friends in North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, 
Louisiana and Texas. The other slaveholding states, to wit, Maryland, 
Kentucky, and Missouri, gave little or no indication of a disposition to 
favor it. Early in the autumn of 1849 some of the first friends of the 
southern movement began to falter ; and, as time advanced, they con- 
tinued to recede from their bold stand in defence of the South. The 
secret influences which were at work to produce these unhappy results, 
will be found, I apprehend, elsewhere than in the places now pointed out. 
"We are now told by some, that they discovered a better state of feeling 
at the North toward the South. Others pretend to have been convinced 
that the movement was premature, and calculated to embarrass the ac- 
tion of Congress ; whilst a much more numerous, and a much more dis- • 
honest class, pretend to have discovered that this convention was to be 
nothing less than an assemblage of conspirators, treasonably bent on the 
destruction of the Union. 

Whilst all this was going on, the sagacious politician and the man of 
thought did not fail to see the true reasons for all this infidelity to a once 
cherished and favorite measure. The truth was, that ambitious and as- 
piring politicians had discovered that the southern movement was dis- 
tasteful to General Tajdor, General Cass, and other distinguished gen- 
tlemen, then high in the confidence of their respective party friends. 
The movements in California began to develope the true policy of Gen- 
eral Taylor, and the " Nicholson Letter" had received a new reading 
from General Cass. It became apparent that the South must be sacri- 
ficed, or party leaders repudiated, and party ties obliterated, and poli- 
ticians had begun to take sides accordingly, when Congress assembled 
in December. Up to this time, however, there remained enough of 
southern influence to keep a powerful phalanx of southern men closely 
allied for common defence. The eff"ort to organize the House of Repre- 
sentatives, made it manifest, that the South meant something more than 
an idle bravado in the course she had taken. For almost an entire 
month, the first successful step in the election of a Speaker had not 
been taken ; and at last, when Mr. Cobb was chosen, it was by a 
plurality, and not, as usual, by a majority of the votes given. At this , 
time, there was manifested the most determined spirit in defence of the 
rights of the South. Still, the close observer could not fail to see that 
the insidious spirit of party was busy at work. 

President Taylor transmitted his annual message to Congress, and 
General Cass treated us to another reading of the "'Nicholson Letter." 



248 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

The President's message did not lift tlie curtain high enough to exhibit 
all that had been done in California. He gave us a bird's eye view, and 
told us to go it blind for the balance. He intimated that he had very 
little to do with the proceedings in California ; yet he presented a paper 
which he denominated the constitution of California; and in two several 
communications, he pressed the consideration of that paper upon Con- 
gress, and he earnestly recommended the admission of the state of Cali- 
fornia into the Union at an early day. 

These proceedings, and these earnest recommendations, could not fail 
to elicit a searching investigation on the part of southern members. It 
became a matter of interesting inquiry, as to who made the pretended 
constitution ; how the people came to be assembled for that purpose ; 
who appointed the time for holding the elections ; who decided on the 
qualification of voters ; who decided that California had the requisite 
population to entitle her to one or more representatives in Congress, 
Avithout which she could not be a state. It was known that Congress 
had never so much as taken legal possession of the country, and it became 
a subject of anxious inquiry to know who it was that had kindly per- 
formed all the functions usually devolved on Congress ; who it was that, 
in aid of the legislative power of the country, had taken the census to 
ascertain the population ; had passed upon the qualification of voters ; 
had appointed the time, place, and manner of holding elections ; who it 
was, in short, that had done all that had usually been required prepara- 
tory to the admission of a new state into the Union. 

It was seen at once that no census had been taken ; and although the 
Constitution required that the representatives should be apportioned among 
the states according to population, no steps had been taken to ascertain 
Avhether California had the requisite population to entitle her to one 
member, whereas she was claiming two. It was seen that the time, 
place, and manner of holding the elections, had all been arranged by a 
military commander, notwithstanding the Constitution required that this 
should be done by law. It was seen, and admitted on all hands, that 
California was asking admission on terms wholly and entirely different 
from those on which other states had made similar applications. Gen- 
tlemen favoring her admission, were wont to answer our objections with 
a shrug of the shoulders, and a lamb-like declaration that " there had 
been some irregularity." Irregularities, fellow-citizens ! Shall con- 
duct like this, pass with that simple and mild expression that it was 
"irregular?" Was it nothing more than irregular to dispense entirely 
with taking a census ? Was it only a little irregular to permit every- 
body to vote — white, black, and red ; citizens, strangers, and foreigners'? 
Was it simply irregular for General Riley, by a military proclamation, 
to decide the time, place, and manner of holding the elections ? Was 
it, I ask you, fellow-citizens, nothing more than an irregular proceeding, 
for a military commander to dispense entirely with the authority of Con- 
gress, the law-making power, and of his own will to set up a government 
hostile to the interests and rights of the Southern States of this Union ? 
If the rights and interests of all the states had been respected, and all 
had concurred in the opinion that the proceeding had only been a little 
irregular, it might have been passed over with a mental protest against 
a recurrence of its like in future. 

But when it is seen that these " irregularities' amount to a positive 



SPEECH AT ELLWOOD SPRINGS. 249 

outrage upon fourteen states of the Union, an outrage against which these > 
states earnestly protested, it becomes us to inquire more seriously into 
the causes ■which led to their perpetration, and to take such decisive 
measures as shall protect us against like " irregularities" in future. Does 
any man doubt that slavery prohibition lay at the bottom of all the - 
"irregularities" in California? 

Does not every one know, that but for the question of slavery, these 
unprecedented outrages would never have been perpetrated ? Is there 
a gentleman outside of a lunatic asylum who does not know that if Cali- 
fornia had framed a pro-slavery instead of an anti-slavery constitution, 
her application for admission into the Union would have been instanta- * 
neously rejected ? And yet, in view of all these and a thousand other 
pregnant facts, we are expected to content ourselves with a simple de- 
claration that " the proceeding was a little irregular, but it was the best 
that could be done." What, fellow-citizens, does this whole matter 
amount to, as it now presents itself? The southern people joined heart 
and hand in the acquisition of territory — shed their blood — laid down 
their lives — expended their treasure in making the acquisition, and 
forthwith the federal authority was employed to exclude them from all 
participation in the common gain. The threat was uttered, and kept 
constantly hanging over them, that if they dared enter those territories 
with their slave property, it would be taken from them. Thus were they 
intimidated and kept out of the country ; no slave-owner would start to 
California with his slave property, when Congress was day by day 
threatening to emancipate his negroes, if he dared to introduce them 
into that country. Not content with thus intimidating southern property, 
the federal power was employed in instigating an unauthorized people to ' 
do that which the Congress of the Uni'ted States had not the power to 
do, to wit, to pass the " Wilmot proviso." 

It is well known that the California constitution contains the " Wilmot 
proviso" in terms. It is equally well know that this proviso has been 
sanctioned by Congress, and that the sanction of Congress imparts to it 
its only vitality. Without that sanction, it is a nullity, a dead letter, an 
absolute nought. Who, then, is responsible for it but Congress — the 
Congress which gave to it its sanction, and thereby imparted to it 
vitality, and moved it into action ? Congress, we are told, could not, 
and da|;ed not pass the proviso ; but the people of California could pro- 
pose it, and Congress could sanction it, and thereby give it existence. 
The people of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and other states, might 
usk Congress to pass the " Wilmot proviso," but Congress dare not do 
it, because there was no power under the Constitution to authorize it ; 
but if the people of California asked it, then it was a very different ques- 
tion — then Congress had all the constitutional power which the case 
required. Let the truth be told. The Wilmot proviso was an old ques- 
tion ; it had been discussed — its enormity had been exposed, and the 
mind of the South was firmly and fixedly made up not to submit to its 
passage. It was necessary, therefore, to take this new track, and before 
the South could recover from her surprise, pass the odious proviso, and 
then present the naked issue of a humiliating submission on the one ' 
side, or disunion on the other. 

Who, fellow-citizens, were these people of California, whose voice has 
been so potential in the work of your exclusion, your humiliation, and 



250 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

your disgrace? — were they American citizens? No, sir, no! they were 
adventurers from all parts of the world. In this blood-bought country 
may have been found the Sandwich Islander, the Chinese, the European 
of every kingdom and country. That there were many American citi- 
zens in the country, is most true ; but the whole were mixed up together, 
and all voted in the work of your exclusion. IIow humiliating to a 
Southron, to see his own government thus taking sides against him, and 
standing guard, while foreign adventurers vote to take from him his rights, 
and then to see that government seizing hold of such a vote and hold- 
ing it up as a justification of the final act of his ignominious exclusion. 
Can any true son of the once proud and noble South witness these things 
without a blush ? Does patriotism require us to hug these outrages to 
our bosom ? Must we forget our natural interests, and kiss the hand 
that inflicts these cruel blows ? Have Ave sunk so low that we dare not 
complain of wrongs like these, lest the cry of disunion shall be rung in 
our ears ? 

It would have been some consolation to knoAV that the framers of this 
California constitution meant to live under it themselves. Even this 
little boon is denied us. We all know that the men who have gone 
to California are mere sojourners there; they mean to stay a little while, 
and then return to their homes in other parts of the world. Hundreds 
and thousands have already left the country, and others will follow their 
example. Not one-half of the persons who aided in the formation of the 
so-called constitution of California are there now; and in a year or two 
more the population will have undergone an entire revolution. 

We have heard that there were many hundred thousand people in 
California. The number in the country at the time the constitution was 
framed has been estimated at two hundred thousand or more, and this 
has been constantly urged in excuse for their assumption of the right to 
make a constitution and set up an independent state government. 

When asked by what authority a few interlopers from abroad under- 
took to snatch from the rightful owners the rich gold mines on the Pacific, 
and to appropriate to free soil all that vast territory lying between the 
thirty-second and forty-second degrees of north latitude — embracing an 
area larger than the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and 
Alabama — we have been told they were a great and growing people ; 
that there were a quarter of a million of inhabitants in the country, and 
hundreds of thousands on their way there. Let us examine the truth of 
these bold assertions. If there is any country on earth where there are 
no women and children, where the whole population consists of full- 
grown men, that country is California. We all know that the emigration 
has been confined to the adult male population, who have gone on a visit 
of observation, leaving their families and friends behind, and intending 
to return. We all know that in the matter of voting there was no restric- 
tion ; every male inhabitant over the age of twenty-one years was allowed 
to vote, and on the important question of adopting a state constitution, 
the poll-books showed less than thirteen thousand voters. If there was 
a quarter of a million of people in the country, how shall we account 
for this meagre vote? The fact is, this is but another link in the great 
chain of deception and fraud by which we have been denied our rights 
'n the country — by which we and our posterity have been cheated out 
jf the most valuable property on earth — by which we have been reduced 



SPEECH AT ELLWOOD SPRINGS. 251 

to tlie sad alternative of submitting to the most humiliating deprivation 
of our rights, or driven to a severance of th» bonds which unite us to 
the North. 

If the gross injustice, the deep injury and wrong which we are called 
upon to suffer, had ceased with the consummation of this California 
fraud, we mifjht have bent our heads in humiliation and in sorrow, and, 
without daring to complain of the tyranny of our oppressors, have borne 
it in silence. But it did not stop here. The cup of our degradation 
was not quite full to overflowing; and it was determined to wrest from 
the slaveholding state of Texas, one-third of her rightful territory. In 
the perpetration of this fraud the North had two powerful allies, and 
both, I am pained to say, furnished by the South. One was the ten 
millions of dollars taken from a common treasury, and the other the vote 
of one-half the southern delegation in Congress. 

I hold in my hand a map of Texas. It speaks more eloquently in 
defence of Texas than the ablest orator has ever yet spoken. Here on 
this map is the boundary of Texas, as marked first by her sword, and 
then made legible by the act of her Legislature in December, 1836. See, 
it extends from the mouth of the Rio Grande to the source of that river, 
and it reaches to the forty-second degree of north latitude. Here, too, 
is marked on this map the " Clay compromise line," and the "line of 
adjustment,'" as laid down in the final act of dismemberment, commonly 
known as Pearce's bill. Keep these lines in your memory, fellow- 
citizens, while we recur for one moment to the history of the reannexa- 
tion of Texas to the United States. 

What is that history? I need not relate the whole of it. I need not 
say how like an ardent lover we wooed and won this fair daughter of the 
Saxon blood. Texas was young, blooming, and independent; we wooed 
her as the lover wooes his mistress. She fell into our arms, and with 
rnpturous hearts we took her for better or for worse. Fathers Clay and 
Van Buren forbade the bans ; but the people cried, with a loud voice, 
"Let the marriage go on." It did go on; Texas merged her separate 
independence into that of the United States, and here in my hands is 
the marriage contract. Here is the treaty, here the resolution of annexa- 
tion. It will be seen that we took her just as she was — just as she pre- 
sented herself. We took that Texas which lay east of the Bio Grande, 
and all along that river from its mouth to its source, and south of the 
42d parallel of latitude north. We took the Texas which was defined 
by the act of December, 1836 ; we took the Texas marked on this map. 
I hold it up before you. It is a portrait of the fair damsel as she was, 
before her limbs were amputated by the northern doctors, aided by sur- 
geons Clay, Pearce, Foote, and others from the South. 

Turn to the resolutions of annexation. I hold them here; without 
pausing to read them, I will state what no man can deny. They ex- 
pressly stipulate, that all that part of Texas lying south of the parallel 
of 36 degrees and 30 minutes north latitude, shall remain slave territory; 
and all north shall be free territory after its admission into the Union 
as states. With this written agreement between the hisih contractincr 
parties, how can any man come forward and say that Texas never 
extended to the parallel of 36| degrees ? How dare any man pretend 
that Texas did not extend north of that line and up to 42 degrees ? I 
will not insult your understanding by debating so palpable a proposition 



252 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

before you. It is as clear as the sun in yonder heavens, that at the 
period of annexation, tlic^ whole country supposed we were acquiring all 

< the territory east of the Rio Grande, and up to 42 degrees. The only 
party on earth who expressed a doubt on this point was Mexico, and 
for acting on her expressed doubts, w^e went to war with her, all parties 

* in this country at least uniting in the war; and when we had whipped 
her, and obtained not only her recognition of the Texas boundary, but a 
cession of New Mexico and California, into the bargain, what do we 
hear? Why, that Texas never owned one foot of territory north of 36J 
degrees. Though we agreed that all of Texas south of 36J should be 
slave territory, and all north of that line free territory, we are told that, 
in truth and in fact, Texas only extended to some undetermined point 
between 32 and 34 degrees of latitude north. Why do men thus stultify 
themselves ? Why do men speak and attempt to reason for the purpose 
of throwing a cloud over the title of Texas to this territory ? Need I 
tell you, fellow'-citizens, that slavery ! slavery ! ! slavery ! ! ! and nothing 
but slavery, is at the bottom of all this business. 

Take the question of domestic slavery out of the way, and this whole 
dispute about the true boundary of Texas could and would have been 
settled in nine hours, and in a manner most satisfactory to all parties. 
It was precisely because Texas was a slaveholding state, and her soil 
slave soil, beyond all cavil or dispute, that it was found important by 
the North to cut these ninety-three thousand sections off and attach them 
to New Mexico. As a part of Texas it was secure to the South; as a 
part of New Mexico, the North had the power and the will to make it 
free soil. If Texas and New Mexico had both been free, or both slave 
states, there would have been little or no dispute about the true bound- 
ary between them. Texas is, and must ever remain, a slaveholding 
state ; New Mexico, if not already free soil, is under the dominion of 
northern power, and will be made so in due season. In these facts will 
be found the only reason for the nine months' struggle in Congress on 
the question of boundary. The northern mind is fully made up that no 
more slave states shall be added to the Union. This is more distinctly 
announced than any other article in their political creed. We all know 
this. And let me ask you, fellow-citizens, if there is one man among 
you all, who supposes that northern politicians, resolved as they all are 
to limit the slave states to their present number, would be so ridiculously 
silly as to cut off ninety-three thousand square miles of slaveholding 
Texas for the purpose of making of it one or two additional slave states ? 
The North has the power to do as she pleases, and no man in this country 

' doubts that she will please to make free territory of these ninety-three 
thousand square miles which she has wrested from Texas, with the aid 
of ten millions of dollars and a large number of southern votes. 

I shall never forget the hour when this measure of gross iniquity to 
the South passed the House of Representatives. On Wednesday we 
defeated it b}^ forty-four majority ; on Thursday we defeated it again 
by eight majority ; on Friday they carried it over us by ten votes ; and 
when the result was announced, there went up from the lobbies, from the 
galleries, and from the floor of the Hall of Representatives, one long, 
loud, wild, maniac yell of unbridled rejoicing — the South was prostrate, 
and Free Soil rejoiced. The South was degraded, fallen, and her ene- 
mies rioted. Ten millions of dollars had been flung to the hungry pack 



SrEECII AT ELUVOOD SrELXGS. 253 

vrho hang like \\"olve3 around the treasury, and there was frantic joy in 
all their hearts and upon all their tongues. They assembled on the 
banks of the Potomac, and in utter defiance oT every decent regard for 
the father of his country — they assembled under the very shade of the 
Washington monument — and there fired a hundred guns. Thus did 
they, in manifestation of their wild rejoicing over the prostrate South, 
and their own clutching of the ten millions of dollars. Nor did the}'- 
pause here, but with drums beating, fifes blowing, and banners stream- 
ing, they paraded the streets of Washington. They called out Mr. 
Clay, and he spoke to them ; they called out Mr. Cobb, Mr. Douglas, 
Mr. Foote, and I know not who else, and they all spoke to them. It ' 
was a night of riot and revelry. The foul deed had been done, and 
when there should have been sorrow and mourning, there was ecstasy ' 
and the wild notes of untamed rejoicing. 

I left the street, filled as it was with this motley crew of free negroes 
and half-clad boys, bankers, brokers, barbers and beggars, northern 
Free Soilers and southern 'patriots — ay, southern patriots — patriots 
whose affections had out-grown their country, and who had taken " all 
the world and the rest of mankind" into their tender keepinir — I left it 

_ , to 

and them, and retn-ed to my private chamber, there to brood over the 
sorrows of my stricken and fallen country. But I was not long left to 
myself and the sorrows of my country. We were summoned to yeD 
another sacrifice. The South no longer had the power of resistance, 
and a generous foe would not have stricken her again. But the northern 
wolf had tasted blood. The southern shepherd was unfaithful to his , 
flock, and another lamb was taken. 

The slave trade in the District of Columbia was abolished. It was bv 
this name they called the deed. It was more than this. It was an act to 
punish the intentions of masters and to emancipate their slaves. The bill 
declares that if slaves are brought to the District of Columbia for the 
purpose of being sold in said district, or anywhere else, they shall be 
free. The law does not punish the act of selling or offering to sell, but 
it punishes the intention to sell ; and how, pray ? Not by fining the 
master, or by sending him to prison, but by emancipating his slave. 
How this law is to operate in practice, I need not say. It is to all 
intents and purposes an act of abolition. Under it, men's intentions will ' 
be judged of by swift juries, by abolition juries, and their slaves set at 
liberty. Does any man doubt that abolition juries will be found in the 
District of Columbia, and in the city of Washington ? There are in the 
district sixteen thousand free negroes, and twenty -three hundred slaves. ' 
Slavery is wearing out there, and to-day, fellow-citizens, I would as soon 
risk a New York or Philadelphia jury on a question involving slavery, 
as a Washington City jury. The people there are growing more and 
more hostile to this species of property every day, and I pity the master 
who has his intentions tried before a jury taken from among them. 

These, fellow-citizens, are the healing measures — the measures of 
peace. This the vaunted adjustment of which so much has been said, 
and for the passage of which the cannon has been fired, the drums beat, 
fifes blown, banners displayed, and all the evidences of national rejoic- 
ing exhibited. 

I cannot believe in the sincerity of these singular demonstrations. I 
cannot think that our ignominious exclusion from California affords 



254 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

cause for joy. I cannot believe that the bill to punish a master's inten- 
tion, by emancipating his slave, has sent joy to southern hearts. I do 
not believe that the dismemberment of Texas has filled the South with 
rejoicing. Men make up their minds to submit to wrong, and pride in- 
duces them to put the best possible face upon it. Men whose hearts are 
wrung with agony, will smile, because they are too proud to weep. Men, 
like boys, may whistle to keep their courage up. But when causes like 
these exist for mourning, it is useless to tell me that men with southern 
hearts rejoice — the thing is impossible. 

I am told that Texas has not been dismembered. That in the kindest 
spirit, the United States has proposed to pay her ten millions of dollars, 
to relinquish her claim to the territory which has been annexed to New 
Mexico. Let us examine the sincerity of this statement. The United 
States, speaking through the Executive, and through Congress, says to 
Texas : " We want this country, and we mean to have it ; you are weak, 
and we are strong. Give up the country quietly, and we will pay you 
ten millions of dollars ; refuse, and here is the army, the navy, and the 
militia." Look at the power of the United States ; look at the threat 
of the President to reduce Texas to submission. Look at the conduct 
of southern senators and representatives. Look at all this, and then 
turn your eyes towards Texas ; see her feeble and weak, without money, 
without arms ; in debt, and without credit; and tell me if it is left to 
her free choice to determine whether she will accept or reject this pro- 
position ? The overgrown bully approaches a weak and feeble man, 
without friends and without the means of defence, and says, " I want 
your land ; give it up quietly, and I will pay you for it, and if you 
refuse, bear in mind, I am stronger than you, and here are my guns, 
here my daggers, and there my armed servants to do my bidding. Choose 
what you will do." "Will not every man's sense of justice revolt at con- 
duct like this ? Is the man thus treated, a free agent ? In thus taking 
his property, has not an outrageous wrong, a positive robbery, been per- 
petrated? I leave it to the good sense of this audience to give the 
answer. 

But we are told that Texas is to be liberally paid, and therefore, if 
she accepts the proposition and gives up the land, we have no just cause 
of complaint. I do not know what sum of money would be liberal com- 
pensation to a sovereign state for being despoiled of one-third of her 
territory. For myself, I would not consent to sell the poorest county 
in Mississippi to the Free-Soil party for all the gold on this side of the 
Atlantic. But when I hear of the liberality of this proposition, it leads 
me to inquire who pays the money. We can all afford to be libera.1 at 
the expense of other people. Do the Free-S.oilers pay this ten millions 
of dollars? Not at all; they get the land, that's clear, and that we 
pay the greater part of the money is equally clear. The money is to 
be paid from the national treasury. I am not about to launch into any 
discussion of the finances, but I want to show who it is that must pay 
this ten millions of dollars to Texas. We derive our national revenue 
chiefly from a duty levied on goods imported into the country. Now, it 
will not be denied that these imports are nothing else than the proceeds 
of the exports. It is perfectly clear that if we cut off the exports, we 
suspend the imports. If we have nothing to sell, we shall^ have nothing 
to buy with, and consequently imports must cease ; and if imports cease, 



SrEECII AT ELLWOOD SPRINGS. 255 

revenue will cease. "We shall export this year, in cotton alone, near one 
hundred millions of dollars in value ; this will form the basis of one 
hundred millions of dollars in goods imported. 

If the government levies a duty of thirty-five per cent, on these, her 
revenue from this source alone will be thirty-five millions of dollars. 
Now, suppose we abstract this cotton from the exports, do we not see 
that we cut off the imports to a like extent, and in cutting oif the 
imports that we likewise cut off the revenue ? But seeing all this, says 
one, I do not yet perceive that you have shown how it is that the cotton 
grower pays the revenue. Go with me, if you please, a little further. 
Suppose my friend who sits before me, and who raises five hundred bales 
of cotton, shall ship that cotton, and himself dispose of it in Liverpool 
for twenty-five thousand dollars. Suppose he invests the money in mer- 
chandise and lands it in New Orleans. The government charges him a 
duty of thirty-five per cent, for the privilege of landing his goods. Now 
answer me this question, would it have been any worse for my friend to 
have been charged thirty-five per cent, on the value of his cotton as he 
went out, with the privilege of bringing back his goods free of duty, 
than it would be to let him take his cotton free of charge and tax him 
thirty-five per cent, duty on the return cargo ? For myself, I cannot 
see that it would make the least difference whether he paid as he went 
out, or as he came in. But I am told the planter does not bring back 
the proceeds of his cotton. He sells it, and the importing merchant 
brings back the proceeds and pays the duty. Let it be borne in mind 
that every man who handles the cotton, from the moment it leaves the 
planter until it comes back in the form of merchandise, handles it on 
speculation ; and I should like to know which one of these speculators 
it is that loses the thirty-five per cent, which the government collects. 
The treasury receives the money; somebody pays it; and in my judg- 
ment, that somebody is the planter. The slaveholding states furnish 
two-thirds of our entire exports, and if I am right in this theory, they 
pay two-thirds of the revenue, and consequently will pay two-thirds, or 
nearly seven millions of the ten millions of dollars given to Texas for 
the territory of which she has been so unjustly despoiled. 

I beg pardon for this digression, and shall return at once to the sub- 
ject before us. 

What compensation has been offered the South for her interest in all 
the vast territories derived from Mexico, for this spoliation of Texas, and 
the emancipation act in the District of Columbia ? We are told that 
the North gave us the fugitive slave law. This, fellow-citizens, Avas our 
right under the Constitution. It could not be refused. No man who 
had sworn to support the Constitution could refuse to vote for an efficient 
law for the surrender of fugitive slaves, unless he was willing to commit 
wilful and deliberate perjury. I do not thank the North for passing 
the fugitive slave law. I will not thank any man or any power for doling 
out to me my constitutional rights. If the North will execute the law 
in good faith, I shall think better of them as brethren and friends than 
I now do. Time will determine whether they will do this. 

These acts have passed. They are now on the statute books, and the 
question arises — shall we tamely submit to their operation, and if we 
resist, in what manner, and to what extent shall we carry that resistance? 

I am not appalled by the cry of disunion, so often and so foolishly 



256 ALBERT G. BROWN 

raised, whenever resistance is spoken of. Tliere are things more terri- 
ble to me tlian tlie phantom of disunion, and one of these is tame sub- 
mission to outrageous wrong. If it has really come to this, that the 
Southern States dare not assert and maintain their equal position in the 

, Union, for fear of dissolving the Union, than I am free to say that the 
Union ought to be dissolved. If the noble edifice, erected by our 
fathers, has become so rickety, worm-eaten, and decayed, that it is in 
danger of falling every time the Southern States assemble to ask for 
justice, then the sooner it is pulled down the better. I am not so 

. wedded to the name of Union as to remain in it until it shall fall and 
crush me. 

I have great confidence that the government may be brought back to 
its original purity. I have great confidence that the government will 
ag-ain be administered in subordination to the Constitution ; that we 
shall be restored to our equal position in the confederacy, and that our 
rights will again be respected as they were from 1783 to 1819. This 
being done, I shall be satisfied — nothing short of this will satisfy me. 
I can never consent to take a subordinate position. By no act or word 
of mine shall the South ever be reduced to a state of dependence on the 
North, I will cling to the Union, and utter its praises with my last 
breath, but it must be a Union of equals ; it must be a Union in which 
my state and my section is equal in rights to any other section or state. 
I will not consent that the South shall become the Ireland of this 

' country. Better, far, that we dissolve our political connection with the 
North than live connected with her as her slaves or vassals. The fathers 
of the republic counselled us to live together in peace and concord, but 
these venerable sages and patriots never counselled us to surrender our 
equal position in the Union. By their lives, they gave us lessons in the 
hornbook of freedom. If Washington could speak to us to-day from 

' the tomb, he would counsel us against submission. He resisted less 
flagrant acts of usurpation and tyranny, and took up arms against his 
king. The flatterers of royalty called this treason. If we resist the 

' greater outrages, can we hope to escape the name of traitor ? 

Let me say to you, in all sincerity, fellow-citizens, that I am no dis- 
unionist. If I know my own heart, I am more concerned about the 
means of preserving the Union than I am about the means of destroy- 
ing it. The danger is not that we shall dissolve the Union, by a bold 
and manly vindication of our rights ; but rather that we shall, in aban- 

. doning our rights, abandon the Union also. So help me God, I believe 
the submissionists are the very worst enemies of the Union, There is 
certainly some point beyond which the most abject will refuse to submit. 
If we yield now, how long do you suppose it will be before we shall be 
called upon to submit again ? And does not every human experience 
admonish us that the more we yield, the greater will become the exac- 
tion of the aggressors ? To the man who thinks and says that we have 
been wronged, and yet submits in sullen silence, I can only say, you 
reason badly for the Union. But to the man who rejoices in the hxte 
action of Congress, who fires cannon, beats drums, and unfurls banners 
with mottoes of joy written on them — to such a man I can say, with a 
heart filled with sorrow, however well meant these acts may be, they in- 
vite ao-wression on our rights, and will lead to certain and inevitable dis- 
union. 



SPEECH AT ELLWOOD SPRINGS. 257 

The best friend of the Union is he who stands boldly up and demands 
equal justice for every state and for all sections. If I have demanded 
more than this, convince me, and I will withdraw the demand. But I 
shall stand unawed by fear and unmoved by flattery in demanding for 
Mississippi the same justice that is meted out to the greatest and 
proudest state in the Confederacy. 

If the Union cannot yield to this demand, I am against the Union. 
If the Constitution does not secure it, I am against the Constitution. I 
am for equal and exact justice, and against anything and everything 
which denies it. 

This justice was denied us in the " adjustment bills" which passed 
Congress. But we are not to infer that the fault was either in the Union 
or in the Constitution. The Union is strength, and if not wickedly 
diverted from its purposes, will secure us that justice and that domestic 
tranquillity which is our birthright. The Constitution is our shield and 
our buckler, and needs only to be fairly administered to dispense equal 
and exact justice to all parts of this great Confederacy. 

Has the South justice in California? Have her rights been respected 
in any part of the territories ? Has she been fairly dealt with in the 
matter of the Texas boundary ? Was good faith observed in the pas- 
sage of the anti-slavery bill for the District of Columbia ? Does the 
North exhibit a spirit of love, charity, good neighborhood, and brotherly 
kindness in the perpetual warfare which she wages on our property ? Is 
the Union now what it was in 1783 ? Did our fathers frame a constitu- 
tion and enter into a union which gave the right of aggression to one- 
half the states, and obliged the other half to submit without a murmur ? 
Would Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison, have entered into such 
a union with Adams, and Hancock, and Jay ? To all these questions 
there can be but one answer, we all know. Every thinking, reasoning 
man knows, that in the war upon slavery, the Constitution and the 
Union have been diverted from their original purposes. Instead of be- 
ing shields against lawless tyranny, they have been made engines of 
oppression to the South. And am I, a southern citizen, to be deterred 
from saying so by this senseless cry of disunion ? Am I to see my 
dearest rights taken from me, and my countrymen denied all participa- 
tion in, or enjoyment of the common property, and be afraid to speak ? 
Must I witness the dismemberment of a southern state and a whole cata- 
logue of wrongs, and fail to speak, lest the Union shall crumble and fall 
about my ears ? I hope the Union is made of sterner stuff, but I am 
free to say, if the Union cannot withstand a demand for justice, I shall 
rejoice to see it fall. 

I will demand my rights and the rights of my section, be the conse- 
quences what they may. It is the imperative duty of every good citizen 
to maintain and defend the Constitution and the Union, and this can 
only be done by demanding and enforcing justice. Let us make this 
demand and let us enforce it, and let the consequences rest on the heads 
of those who violate the Constitution and subvert the Union in this war 
upon justice, equality, and right. 

We are told that our difficulties are at an end; that, unjust as we all 

know tlie late action of Congress to have been, it is better to submit, and 

especially is it better, since this is to be the end of the slavery agitation. 

If this were the end, fellow-citizens, I might debate the question as to 

17 



258 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

whether submission would not he the better policy. Such is my love 
of peace, such my almost superstitious reverence for the Union, that I 
mio-ht be willing to submit if this was to be the end of our troubles. 
But I know it is not to be the end. I know it has not been the end 
thus far. What have we seen? On the passage of all these bills 
throuirh Cono-ress, the North stood shocked and overawed at the enor- 
mity of the wrong done the South ; but Washington city rejoiced, Bal- 
timore rejoiced, Richmond rejoiced. Instead of the thunder notes of 
resistance coming back upon the capitol, we were greeted with songs and 
shouts, and the merry peals of hearts filled with joy. Seward, the 
abolition senator from New York, encouraged by these indications, intro- 
duced a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. It got only 
five votes. The North had not yet recovered from the shock which a 
glance at her own bold work had inflicted on her. After a few more 
days, the news of rejoicing at Louisville, at Augusta, and Nashville, 
came rolling back upon the wings of the lightning, and Seward asked 
another vote, and the result was nine in the affirmative. The cautious 
Dayton, and the still more cunning Winthrop, and men of that class, all 
the while protesting that it was yet too soon to urge that measure. They 
saw and knew full well that the firing of cannon and beating of drums 
were empty signs. They judged rightly, that no people rejoice in heart 
at their own degradation. But this rejoicing still went on ; they fired 
the cannon, and beat the drums, and flung out their banners all over the 
South — at Natchez and New Orleans, at Mobile and at Jackson, at 
Memphis and Montgomery. Not only were the Giddingses and the 
Sewards, the Chases, Hales, and Kings, and all the enemies of the South, 
thus assured that there would be no resistance, but, in the echo of the 
booming cannon and in the shrill notes of the merry fife, they were 
assured that the South was filled with rejoicings and merry songs. What 
was the effect of all this ? Why, fellow-citizens, the vote Avas taken in 
the House on the bill to abolish slavery out-and-out in the District of 
Columbia, and it got fifty-two votes, and there were twenty-nine of its 
friends absent — the largest vote ever given in Congress on the direct 
proposition. Look at these things. Look to the fugitive slave law in 
New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, and elsewhere. Look to the late extra- 
ordinary triumph of Seward in New York. Look to the success of the 
Free Sellers in the late elections. Listen to the notes of preparation 
everywhere in the Northern States, and tell me if men do not wilfully 
deceive you Avhen they say that the slavery agitation is over. I tell you, 
fellow-citizens, it is not over. It never will be over so long as you con- 
tinue to recede before the pressure of northern power. You cannot 
secure your rights ; you cannot save the Union or the Constitution, by 
following the timid counsels of the submissionists. Pursue these counsels, 
and they will lead to a sacrifice of all that we hold dear — of life, liberty, 
property, and the Union itself. By a submission you may secure, not a 
union, but a connection with the North. It will be such a connection as 
exists between Ireland and England, Poland and Russia, Hungary and 
Austria. It will not, it cannot be the Union of our fathers — it cannot 
be a union of equals. ^ 

You can save the Union, fellow-citizens, and you can do it by a stern 
resistance to wrong. 

I have seen the Free Soil elephant of the North. He is governed by 



SPEECH AT ELLWOOD SPRINGS. 259 

the instincts of iiis species. He never crosses a bridge without first 
pressing it with his foot to see if it will sustain his ponderous frame. 
Make the bridge strong, and he will cross ; but let it be weak, and he will 
stay on his own side. If you want this Free- Soil elephant among you, 
make the bridge strong, give him assurance of submission, convince him 
that he may pass the gulf that divides you in safety, and he will come 
among you and destroy you. If you would keep him out, show him the 
yawning chasm, and convince him that if he attempts to cross he will be 
precipitated to the bottom, and, my life upon it, he will be content to 
remain at home. 

The North will inflict all that the South will bear, even to a final 
emancipation of the negro race. She will inflict nothing that you will 
not bear. 

I am detaining you, fellow-citizens, beyond the time which I allotted 
to myself; allow me to bring these remarks to a close. 

I am for resistance. I am for that soi't of resistance which shall be 
effective and final. Speaking to you as a private citizen, I shall not 
hesitate to express my individual opinions freely and fearlessly as to 
the best mode of resistance. I do not ask — I do not expect any one to 
adopt my opinions. They are the result of my own best reflections, and 
they will not be abandoned, except to embrace others more likely to prove 
effective in practice. 

I approve of the governor's convocation of the legislature. The 
measure was called for by the emergencies of the hour, and was, in my 
judgment, eminently wise and proper. 

I trust the legislature will order a convention of the state. Give the 
people a chance to speak. Let the voice of the sovereign state be heard 
speaking through a regularly-organized convention, and it will command 
respect. Our bane has been our divisions. We never can unite as one 
man — our people are too much imbued with the early prejudices of their 
native homes. Congregated from all the states of the Union, and from 
many foreign countries, they never can unite on one common platform. 
But the majority can speak, and if that majority speaks through a con- 
vention legally elected, its voice will silence dissension. It will be the 
voice of a sovereignty — it will command respect. 

What if three-fourths of the people of Mississippi are for resistance, 
the other fourth makes as loud a noise, and their voice sounds as large 
in New York or Massachusetts. What if five-sixths of your delegation 
in Congress have spoken the sentiment of the state, the other sixth has 
protested that he speaks the voice of the state. Let the people speak ! 
Let them speak through the ballot-box. Let a convention be called, and 
through that convention, let us speak the sentiments of the sovereign state. 

I should hope that such a movement in Mississippi would be responded 
to in most, if not all the Southern States. I should have great confidence 
that South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, would meet us on 
a common platform, and resolve with us to stand or fall together. 

I speak with great deference, but with the utmost freedom as to what 
course Mississippi and the other states should pursue. I speak for 
myself alone, and no man or party is in any way responsible for what 
I say. 

We should demand a restoration of the laws of Texas in hcec verba over 
the country which has been taken from her and added to New Mexico. 



260 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

In other words, we should demand the clear and undisputed right to carry 
our slave property to that country, and have it protected and secured to 
us after we get it there ; and we should demand a continuation of this 
right and of this security and protection. 

We should demand the same right to go into all the territories with 
our slave property, that citizens of the free states have to go with any 
species of property, and we should demand for our property the same 
protection that is given to the property of our northern brethren. No 
more, nor less. 

We should demand that Congress abstain from all interference with 
slavery in the territories, in the District of Columbia, in the states, on 
the high seas, or anywhere else, except to give it protection, and this 
protection should be the same that is given to other property. 

We should demand a continuation of the present fugitive slave law, 
or some other law which should be effective in carrying out the mandate 
of the Constitution for the delivery of fugitive slaves. 

We should demand that no state be denied admission into the Union, 
because her constitution tolerated slavery. 

In all this we should ask nothing but meagre justice ; and a refusal 
to grant such reasonable demands would show a fixed and settled pur- 
pose in the North to oppress and finally destroy the Southern States. If 
the demands here set forth, and such others as would most effectually 
secure the South against further disturbance, should be denied, and that 
denial should be manifested by any act of the Federal Government, 
we ought forthwith to dissolve all political connection with the Northern 
States. 

If the Southern States, in convention, will lay down this or some other 
platform equally broad and substantial, and plant themselves upon it, I 
know there are hundreds and thousands of good men and true at the 
North, who will take positions with them, and stand by them to the last. 
In the present condition of our counsels, we can never expect support 
from the North. Distracted and divided at home and in Congress, those 
at the North who are disposed to aid us, are left in doubt as to which is 
the true southern side of the question. Suppose Mr. Dallas, Mr. Pauld- 
ing, or some other friend of the South, should undertake our defence, 
would he not be met with language like this: "Look at Clay, look at 
Benton, look at Houston, look at hundreds in the South — listen to the 
roar of their cannon and the music of their drums, and do you, sir, pre- 
tend to know more of southern rights than the South knows of her own 
rights." What could our northern friends say to a speech like this ? 
No, fellow-citizens, no ! Do not place your friends at the North in this 
condition. Erect a platform on which they may stand and fight your 
battles for you. When the Free-Soiler points to the Clays, theBentons, 
the Houstons, and others, enable your friends to point to Mississippi and 
Georgia, and Alabama, and South Carolina, assembled in conventions. 
And when the Free-Soiler appeals to the cannon roaring and the drums 
beating, let your friends appeal to the voice of sovereign states demanding 
justice, equality, and liberty on the one side, or disunion on the other. 

If I hesitate to embrace the doctrine of disunion, it is because the 
North has, to some extent, been inveigled into her present hostile posi- 
tion towards the South by our own unfaithful representatives, and 
encouraged to persevere in the mad policy by the ill-advised conduct of 



THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT. 261 

some of our own people. A portion of the southern senators and repre- 
sentatives voted for the admission of California, and large numbers sus- 
tained the Texas spoliation bill. The whole advantages of these measures 
inured to the benefit of the North, and we could not reasonably expect 
northern men to do more for us than our own representatives. We have 
great reason to complain of the North, but we have much greater reason 
to complain of our own unfaithful servants. The North is deceived as 
to the true condition of southern sentiment, but they have been deceived 
by our own people. Let us undeceive them. Let us prepare to strike 
for justice, equality, liberty. But let us first give fair warning, and let 
that warning be given in an authentic and authoritative form. Let us 
do this, and if then we are forced to strike, we shall be sustained by all 
good men, Ave shall be sustained by God, and our own clear consciences. 
These are my opinions, fellow-citizens, freely expressed. I do not ask 
you to sanction them or to adopt them as your own, unless you approve 
them. I have but one motive, and that is to serve my afflicted country. 
Wholly and entirely southern in my sentiments and feelings, I have 
never debated with myself what course it were best for me to pursue. 
Ambition might have led me to the North, but as I loved the land of my 
birth more than the honors and emoluments of power and of place, I 
have taken sides with the South. Her destiny shall be my destiny. If 
she stands, I will stand by her, and if she falls, I will fall with her. 



THE SOUTHERN MOYEMEXT— MISSISSIPPI 

- POLITICS. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 14, 1852, ON THE 
SOUTHERN MOVEMENT AND MISSISSIPPI POLITICS. 

It is not my purpose, Mr. Chairman, to address the House at all in 
reference to the bill now before it. I propose, in the opening of my 
remarks, to take a brief retrospect of the rise, progress, and fall, of the , 
southern movement. It is very well known, sir, not only to the mem- 
bers of Congress, but to the whole country, that the continued action 
of the northern people, and of the Northern States, upon the subject of 
the domestic relations existing in the South, between the master and the 
slave, had at one time wrought up the southern mind to a very high de- 
gree of exasperation. Apprehensions were freely expressed, and doubt- 
less generally entertained, that some great disaster was likely to befall 
the country, growing out of this excitement. In this state of public 
feeling, during the Thirtieth Congress, a gentleman, then a representa- 
tive from one of the districts in the state of New York [Mr. Gott], in- 
troduced a resolution, preceded by what the southern members beHeved 
to be a most insulting preamble. This preamble, insulting though it 
certainly was, did not propose any legislative action. The resolution 
directed a very simple, but a very important inquiry to be made. It 
directed the committee for the District of Columbia, to inquire into the 
expediency of abolishing the slave trade in this District. The passage 



262 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

of this resolution gave offence to the whole southern delegation, and they 
commenced, at once, manifesting their hostility to this movement in a 
manner not to be misunderstood. 

A distinguished gentleman in the other branch of the legislature, from 
my own state, and now its governor, came, as the older members of Con- 
gress know very well, into this House and solicited members of Congress 
to sign their names to a call for a meeting of southern senators and rep- 
resentatives. In obedience to this call, a meeting assembled in the 
Senate Chamber, over which a venerable senator from the state of . 
Kentucky [Governor Metcalfe] was called to preside. Here, sir, I date 
the rise of the southern movement. From this point it commenced its 
progress. But for this movement, I undertake to say, the southern 
Democracy was not responsible. That meeting was a joint assemblage 
of the southern Whigs and of the southern Democrats. There were Whigs 
who absented themselves ; and there were Democrats who absented 
themselves ; but the southern delegation in Congress generally, and 
Avithout reference to party, was responsible for the meeting and for its pro- 
ceedings. That meeting put forth an address to the southern people,' 
written, as it is said, and I have no doubt correctly, by the late venerable 
and distinguished senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun]. It was 
such a paper as was intended to produce, as it certainly did produce, a 
most profound sensation upon the southern mind. Upon my return to 
Mississippi, I found a very high degree of excitement — an excitement 
not confined to the Democrats, but pervading all parties, Whigs as well 
as Democrats. A proposition had already been made, and was then 
being actively urged, for a convention of our state — a popular conven- 
tion — to take into consideration the relations then subsisting between 
the North and the South, growing out of the institution of domestic 
slavery. A number of gentlemen, of both political parties, published a 
call to the people, inviting them to assemble in convention. This call 
was the first advance step of the southern movement, and for it, both 
Whigs and Democrats in my state were alike responsible. In obedience 
to it, the people, without reference to party, assembled in primary meet- 
ings and appointed delegates to a state convention, and, in every instance, 
the delegates to that convention were appointed of equal numbers, Whigs 
and Democrats. The convention assembled in the month of October, 
1849. 

This, sir, was the second step in the progress of the southern move- 
ment. Up to this period neither party could claim the exclusive credit, 
and up to this time it was all credit — there was no debit. That conven- 
tion put forth another address to the people of Mississippi, and from that 
address I propose just in this connection to read a very short extract. 
For this address, bear you in mind, both the Whig and the Democratic 
parties of Mississippi were responsible, so far as they could be made 
responsible by their delegates in convention. It bore the honored signa- 
tures of leading Democrats and leadino; Whigs. It was a document 
which bore the signature of a very distinguished member of the Union 
party, now high in the confidence of the administration, and its repre- 
sentative as chief consul on the Island of Cuba — Judge Sharkey. After 
disclosing to the people what had been done and what was proposed for 
the future. Judge, now Consul, Sharkey and his associates said : — 



THE SOUTIIERX MOVEMENT. 263 

" Besides and beyond a popular convention of the Southern States with the view 
and the hope of arrestin<!; the cause of aggression, and if not practicable, then to con- 
centrate the South in will, understanding, and action, the convention of Mississippi 
suggested, as the possible ultimate resort, the call by the legislature of the assailed 
states, or still some more solemn conventions — such as should be regularly elected 
by the people of those states — to deliberate, speak, and act with all the sovereign 
power of the people. Should, in the result, such conventions be called and meet, 
they may lead to a like regularly-constituted convention of all the assailed states, to 
provide in the last resort for their separate loelfare by the formation of a compact and 
an union that will atford protection to their liberties and their rights." 

Now, that is the language for which I say all parties in Mississippi 
were responsible. It is the emanation of a convention composed equally 
of Whigs and of Democrats, or as they are now called of State-Rights men 
and Union men. The very head and front of the Union party in Mis- 
sissippi, was the president of the convention, which put forth that ad- 
dress — the very head and front of the Union party in Mississippi 
attached his name to that sentiment and published it to the people of 
Mississippi — "to provide in the last resort for their separate welfare." 
How could this be done else than by a separation from the Northern 
States ? How could it ctraM be done else than by secession or revolu- 
tion — by breaking up the government ? True, it was to be done in the 
last resort ; and pray, have we ever spoken of secession except as the 
last resort — the final alternative ? But now I find this language brought 
into the House of Representatives by my honorable colleague [Mr. Wil- 
cox], and held up here with an attempt to hold the party to which I 
belong responsible for it. History, sir, must be known to him, at least 
the history of our own state, and if he has read that history, he knows 
that the Honorable William L. Sharkey, the appointee of Millard Fill- 
more as consul to the city of Havana, was among those who put forth 
this address — put his signature to this language, and endorsed it to the 
people of Mississippi. To this point the southern movement progressed. 
This Mississippi convention advised the convention of the Southern 
States. Virginia responded to that call, so did Georgia and Alabama, 
and Louisiana, and Arkansas, and Texas. Ay, even Tennessee came 
in, slowly and reluctantly, it is true, but still she comes 

Mr. Polk. To save the republic. 

Mr. Brown. Yes, sir, Tennessee went into the Nashville Convention 
to save the republic, and so did Mississippi. 

Mr. Scurry. If the gentleman will permit me to interrupt him. 

Mr. Brown. Very briefly. 

Mr. Scurry. The gentleman who attended from Texas did so against 
the large majority of the district whicli he represented. A majority of 
that district voted directly and flatly against the convention. 

Mr. Brown. Well, I am not going to inquire how delegates came 
to be there. I speak of history as it is. Texas was represented in the 
convention, whether by her authority I do not know, and what is more, 
at this time I do not care. It is not material. The Nashville Conven- 
tion, in obedience to this call, and in pursuance of these proceedino-s, 
assembled. This was another step in the progress of the southern move- 
ment. Up to this time, if there was any strenuous objection to it any- 
where, I, at least, was not aware of it. Here and there an exception 
may have been found — here and there a newspaper editor might be found 
to oppose it; but the great mass of the southern politicians — as far as I 



264 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

could judge of the southern people — Whigs and Democrats — weresfor it. 
They were for it -without distinction as to party. The convention 
assembled. It elected Honorable William L. Sharkey, of my own state 
— the head and front of Mississippi Unionism — to preside over its 
deliberations. He did preside. That convention put forth an address 
to the people, followed by a series of resolutions, asserting certain pro- 
positions upon which the southern people ought to insist. Still, sir, 
there was no formidable objection either to the convention, or to what 
it said or did. The progress of the movement still seemed to be onward. 
Soon afterwards the compromise measures began to attract attention in 
the country and in Congress. A feeling of trepidation seemed to steal 
over senators and representatives. Here and there an old advocate of 
the Nashville Convention — one who had looked to it as the source from 
which a panacea was to come for all wounds and bruises and putrifying 
sores, gradually fell oiF. I might call names, if I did not wish to avoid 
involving myself in a discussion with too many gentlemen at the same 
time. With the falling off of these early and sturdy advocates, com- 
menced the decline of the southern movement — and with the passage of 
the compromise, I mark the first distinct evidence of its decay. 

In November, 1850, after the compromise measures had passed, a 
Union convention, the first ever held to my knowledge in the United 
States — certainly the first ever held in my own state — was assembled 
at the city of Jackson, the seat of government of Mississippi. It was 
not a Southern-Rights convention ; it Avas not a State-Rights conven- 
tion ; it was not a Whig convention ; it was not a Democratic conven- 
tion ; it was a Union convention, so it was called, and so it assembled. 
It was in advance of any other political organization in the state of 
Mississippi, or any other state, growing, so far as I know, out of the 
compromise. It rose as if from the ashes of the southern movement in 
Mississippi. It was made up of the consistent few who opposed, and of 
the greater number who seceded from the southern movement. With 
the assemblage of this convention in Mississippi, I date the downfall of 
the southern movement in that state ; a fall which was rapidly succeeded 
by its downfall elsewhere. Virginia determined to acquiesce in the 
measures of the compromise ; Georgia acquiesced ; Alabama and the 
other states in the South followed suit, or were silent. To the Union 
convention of Mississippi belongs the credit, if credit it be, of striking 
the first fatal blow at the southern movement. From this moment it 
, rapidly declined. The movement I regard as dead. It died at the 
hands of its early friends — its fathers. It is now very dead ; and if I 
were called upon to write its epitaph, I would inscribe upon the stone 
that marked its burial place, Requiescat in pace. I will not make merry 
over the tomb of an old friend. I loved this movement. I believed it 
was, in its day, full of patriotism, full of devotion to the best interests 
of the country, and eminently calculated to preserve the Union, because 
it was eminently calculated to preserve the rights of the states within 
the Union. But it has passed away. A Avitty friend, in speaking of 
its buoyant rise, its rapid progress, and its early decay, described it as 
being like Billy Pringle's pig : 

" When it lived, it lived in clover, 
And when it died, it died all over." 
[Laughter.] 



THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT. 265 

When those who had been chiefly instrumental in getting up this 
movement abandoned it, could we be made longer responsible for it ? 
They brought it into being, and by their hands it fell ; and now they 
turn upon us, denounce it as a monster, and charge its sole paternity on 
us. We assume our due share of the responsibility, and they shall take 
theirs. 

The Southern movement was, I repeat, the joint work of both parties 
acting together. This is history. If there was any rivalry, it was as to 
which party was entitled to the most credit. There was in this move- 
ment a fusion of parties. But upon all the old issues each party main- 
tained its separate organization. A*nd when the Southern movement 
was abandoned, each was free to resume its original position. 

The Whigs did not return to their position. They halted by the way- 
side, and, by the aid of a few Democrats, formed the Union party. It 
was a party not demanded by the exigencies of the hour; but called into 
existence to subserve the views of particular men. This brings me to 
consider the present organization of parties in my state. 

My colleague [Mr. Wilcox] the other day, in what I considered rather 
bad taste — although I certainly shall not undertake to lecture him upon 
matters of taste — spoke of a bare minority — of almost a majority of the 
people of our state, as attempting to sneak back into the Democratic 
ranks. That was the language employed. In speaking of the State- 
Rights men of 1832, after their separation from General Jackson, he 
said : — 

" They stood aloof from the party, in armed neutrality, in the only state where 
they had a majority ; and in states where they were in the minority, generally acted 
with the Whig party in opposition to the Democrats. They did not, after their de- 
feat, attempt to sneaJc back into the Democratic party under the style of old-line 
Democrats, as the secessionists of the present day are attempting to do." 

Now I shall undertake to demonstrate that the State-Rights party of 
Mississippi were never out of the ranks of the Democratic party, and 
that by no act of theirs have they ever put themselves beyond the pale 
of that party ; and therefore there was no occasion for them to march 
back, even with banners flying, and much less for them to " sneak 
back," in the language of my colleague. Who were they that put them- 
selves first out of the pale of the Democratic party ? It was my col- 
league and his associates. In November, 1850, they assembled together 
in what they certainly did not call a Democratic convention. They 
assembled in a Union convention, and passed what they were pleased 
to term Union resolutions. They formed a Union organization, inde- 
pendent of the Democratic party, and equally independent of the Whig 
party. They did more than that. They chose, as the especial organ 
of that party — the particular mouth-piece of that political organization, 
the leading Whig organ at the seat of government. I ask if it is not 
so ? It is true they took down the name of the paper. It was called 
the "Southron." That title no longer suited their purpose, and they 
called it the "Flag of the Union." But they left the old Whig editor 
to conduct it. True it is that they associated with him a so-called Union 
Democrat. And it is equally true that the old-line Whig and the new- 
line Democrat yet conduct that journal. From this point, the unhappy 
controversy which has continued in Mississippi, took its progress. The 
Democratic party became divided. But there can be no difiiculty in 



266 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

deciding who kept up the old organization. The newspaper press of the 
state gives always a pretty clear indication as to how parties stand. If 
there is one single, solitary Whig paper in the state of Mississippi that 
has not kept the Union flag flying at its masthead from the opening 
of the contest down to this hour, I ask my colleague to say which 
one it is. If there was a Democratic paper in the state of one year's 
standing that did not take the State-Rights side, with but a single ex- 
ception, the Columbus Democrat, and keep it, I do not know where it is 
to be found. Who seems from these facts to have been getting out of 
the Democratic party — my colleague, who is sustained by the Whig 
press, or I, who have been and am yet sustained by the Democratic 
press ? 

More than this. The Union party called a convention in April, 1851. 
It was to be, by the terms of the call, a Union convention — mark you, 
it was not a Democratic convention, it was not a Whig convention, but 
it was a Union convention. What did it do? Did it nominate Demo- 
crats for ofiice ? It made four nominations, and two of them were 
Democrats by name, and two of them were open and avowed Whigs. It 
did not assemble as a Democratic convention. It did not sit as a Demo- 
cratic convention. It did not make Democratic nominations. It nomi- 
nated two Whigs and two Democrats, and my colleague voted the ticket 
thus nominated. Who was it, let me ask, that, following after strange 
gods, thus put himself outside the Democratic party ; and who is he 
that, in coming back, will have occasion to sneak into the ranks ? 

The State-Rights party, or the Democratic State-Rights party, as it 
is termed in our state, assembled in convention in June. What did they 
do ? They made their nominations, and they selected their nominees 
from the old-line Democracy. General John A. Quitman was made our 
standard-bearer. I Avas surprised the other day to hear my colleague 
going back to 1824 and 1828, to find the evidence of Quitman's want 
of fidelity to true Democratic principles. Something has been said about 
a statute of limitation. Whether the late distinguished nominee of the 
Democracy of Mississippi requires a statute of limitation, I certainly do 
not know. If he voted for John Quincy Adams in 182-1 and 1828, and 
has since seen the error of his way, where is the Democrat who will not 
forgive him ? Where is the Mississippi Democrat who has not forgiven 
him ? But we have his own word for saying, that he did not vote for 
John Quincy Adams in 1821. He did not vote for him in 1828. He 
was always a State-Rights man of the strictest sect ; and upon the 
issuing of General Jackson's proclamation against South Carolina, he, 
like hundreds and thousands of others who had been always faithful to 
the standard of the old hero, abandoned him ; and they returned to him 
in their own good time. But if it be so grave an ofi"ence in the Demo- 
crats of Mississippi to have nominated a gentleman who voted (allowing 
the charge of my friend to be true) for John Quincy Adams in 1821, 
and again in 1828, what shall my friend say of Governor Foote ? He 
claims to be a better Democrat than anybody else ; and yet he held the 
only oflice that he ever did hold at the hands of the people in Missis- 
sippi, until he was elected governor, from the Whigs of the county of 
Hinds, and that so late as 1838-'9. Yes ; my friend forgot that, in 
1838, Governor Foote run as a Whig, was elected as a Whig, and served 
as a Whig in our legislature. So upon the score of consistency, I 



THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT. 2G7 

think, allowing my friend's statements to be true, we stand quite as well 
as he does. And' I submit to my colleague whether it is not a little 
too late for him, or for his friend, the governor of the — I was going to 
say Union party, but he is governor of the state by the constitution — to 
complain of Governor Quitman's want of Democracy. Did not both you 
and Governor Foote vote for Quitman for governor in 1849 ? Did not 
Governor Foote put forth, or aid in putting forth, a pamphlet, in this 
city, urging the claims of this same John A. Quitman for the Vice-Pre- 
sidency ? Yes, sir, so late as 1848 he recommended him as a man 
worthy of trust, to the whole Democracy of the Union. Yet my friend 
lays charges against his political orthodoxy, dated as far back as 1824 
and J828 — twenty years beyond the time when he received the endorse- 
ment of Governor Foote and nearly one-third of the whole Democracy 
of the Union ; twenty-one years beyond the time when he received the 
endorsement of Mississippi for governor, and my friend's vote for the 
same office. If the endorsement of the National Democracy in 1848 — 
if the endorsement of the Mississippi Democracy in 1849 — if the 
endorsement of Governor Foote, and of my colleague also, may be relied 
on, I think Quitman can pass muster. He is sound. 

Our nominees were all Democrats. We run them as Democrats — as 
State-Rights Democrats — against the Union ticket, composed of two 
Whigs and two Democrats. We were beaten. And what has happened 
since the election ? Who is it that has gone out of the Democratic 
party ? The legislature assembled — the new governor was inaugurated. 
AVhat was almost his first act ? It was to appoint an adjutant-general. 
It was an important appointment — the most important in his gift. Did 
he appoint a Union Democrat? No, not he. Did he appoint a Seces- 
sion Democrat, as my friend calls them ? No, not at all ; but he ap- 
pointed a Whig. That was his first important appointment as governor, 
and he dismissed a Democrat to make it. What did his " faithful Union 
legislature" do ? It did not send him back to the Senate, that is clear. 
I will tell you what it did. There was an old and venerable Democrat 
superintending the penitentiary. It was a mere ministerial office, filled 
by a man who had confessedly discharged his duties with ability and 
integrity, and to the entire satisfaction of everybody. He Avas turned 
out by the Union legislature, and a Whig put in his place. A gentle- 
man who had discharged for a series of years the duties of clerk of the 
same establishment, with fidelity, and to the entire satisfaction of every 
one, was also dismissed, and a Whig put in his place. A Whig sergeant- 
at-arms was elected. Places were given to other Whigs over the heads 
of Democrats. The patronage of the state, so far as the governor and 
legislature could control it, has been given to the Whigs ; and so far as 
the executive advertising has been concerned, it has, with scarcely an 
exception, been given to the Whig press. I ask if this looks like Demo- 
cracy ? Two vacancies existed in the United States Senate. How 
were they filled ? With Democrats, did you say — old, long-tried, and 
consistent Democrats? Were they sent here to represent the Union 
men of Mississippi? No, sir. One Democrat and one Whig were 
returned. If these things show that my colleague, and his associates 
in Mississippi, have been faithful to the Democratic party, why, then, I 
must confess I have grown strangely wild in my opinions of political 
fidelity. What think our friends from other states ? " Can things like 



268 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

these o'ercome tliem like a summer cloud, and not excite their wonder ?" 
Is it consistent with Democratic usage to organize under the style of the 
Union party ? Is it compatible with party fidelity to nominate and 
elect bitter enemies of the party ? Is it a part of the tactics of the 
Democratic party to dismiss Democrats and put Whigs in their places ? 
Ought the patronage of a Democratic government to be given exclu- 
sively to the Whig press ? And, finally, ought a Democratic legislature 
to elect a Whig United States senator ? These are questions raised by 
my friend, and his party. I ask the National Democracy to answer 
them. 

My colleague calls us constantly through his speech, the secessionists 
and disu7iionists of Mississippi. This is a kind of political slang used 
in a party canvass with effect, but it is entirely out of place here. A 
member of Congress ought to use terms that apply to a given state of 
facts — that have some relation to justice. My friend says what he, 
perhaps, said so often in the heat of the canvass, that he almost got to 
think it was true — that we went into the contest with secession and dis- 
union inscribed upon our banners. Why, no such thing is true. My 
friend must have seen that inscription through a distempered imagina- 
tion — through some extraordinary perversion of his mental vision. 
There was no such inscription on our banner. The Democratic party 
of Mississippi asserted the abstract right of a state to secede from this 
Union. They entertain that opinion now; and at all proper times and 
upon all proper occasions, they will maintain it. We believe, in the 
language of the Kentucky resolutions, " that where there is no common 
arbiter, each party to a compact is to judge of the infractions of the 
compact, and of the mode and measure of redress." 

The state, we say, " is to be the judge of infractions of the compact, 
and of the mode and measure of redress." If, in the language of the 
Kentucky resolutions, the state believed that the compact has been 
violated, she, and she alone, has the right to judge, so far as she herself 
is concerned, of that infraction, and the mode and measure of its redress. 
I desire to ask my colleague if he does not endorse the Kentucky reso- 
lutions, and whether the whole Union party of Mississippi does not en- 
dorse them ? If he will say to us, by authority of his party, that they 
repudiate these resolutions, I will guaranty that they sink so low, as a 
political party, that, though you sounded for them with a hundred fathom 
lead line, a voice would still come booming up from this mighty deep, 
proclaiming, "no bottom here." 

I desire to submit this proposition to my colleague. He says, that 
because we assert the right of secession, therefore we are secessionists. 
JVon constat. He asserts the right of revolution. Let me ask my friend, 
Do you consider yourself as a revolutionist ? If I am to be denounced 
as a secessionist because I assert the right to secede, may I not turn 
upon my assailant and say to him, You are not a revolutionist, because 
you assert the right of revolution ? 

But, sir, this new Union organization — this party which claims first to 
be the Whig party par excellence, and then to be the Democratic party 
2mr excellence — to what sort of sentiments does it hold ? Ask my friend 
here [Mr. Wilcox], in the presence of our colleague of the Senate [Mr. 
Brooke], who has lately arrived in this city, " Gentlemen, what are 
your opinions on the subject of the currency?" My friend would doubt- 



THE SOUTHERN xAlOVEMENT. 269 

less say something about hard-money, and gold and silver; but our 
colleague in the Senate would tell us that he believes in paper money, 
and banks. Suppose the two gentlemen should be asked what they 
thought on the subject of protection ? My friend here would commence 
lecturing you about free-trade ; but his colleague in the Senate would 
begin to tell us how much protection we want. And it would be thus 
in regard to distribution, internal improvements by the federal govern- 
ment, the Sub-treasury, and upon all other party questions. If you 
ask them what they are for, they tell you they are for. the Union. But 
as to what political measures they propose to carry out, they do not at 
all agree, even among themselves. 

Why, sir, if I may be alloAved, in this high council-place, to indulge 
in an anecdote, I think I can tell one illustrative of the position of this 
Union party, and especially the Union party of my own state. There 
was an old gentleman who kept what was called the "Union Hotel." 
A traveller rode up and inquired whether he could have breakfast. The 
landlord said, "What will you have?" "Well," said he, "I'll take 
broiled chicken and coffee." " I don't keep them." "Let me have 
beefsteak and boiled eggs, then." " I don't keep them." "Well," said 
the traveller, " never mind ; give me something to eat." " I don't keep 
anything to eat." "Then," said the traveller, getting a little out of 
patience, "feed my horse: give him some oats." "I don't keep oats." 
" Then give him a little hay." " I don't keep hay." " Well, give him 
something to eat." " I don't keep anything for horses to eat." [Laugh- 
ter.] " Then what the devil do you keep ?" " I keep the Union Hotel." 
[Renewed laughter.] So with this Union party. They are for the 
Union, and they are for nothing else. They are for that to which no- 
body is opposed. They are constantly trying to save the Union, and 
are making a great outcry about it, when, in fact, nobody has sought or 
is seeking to destroy it. They keep the Union Hotel, but they don't 
keep anything else. 

Now, sir, to come a step further in the progress of Mississippi politics. 
As soon as the election in our state resulted adversely to my friends and 
to myself, we, as a matter of course, abandoned the issue upon which it 
had been conducted. We gave up a contest in which we had been beaten. 
But we did not change our opinions as to the soundness of the principle. 
It was a contest for the maintenance of a particular state principle, or 
state policy. We were overthrown by a majority of the people of our 
own state, and consequently we gave up the issue. Immediately after- 
wards, by the usual authority and in the usual way, there was a notice 
inserted in the leading Democratic papers of the state, calling upon the 
Democratic party, without reference to new state issues, and without 
reference to past disputes, to assemble in convention for the purpose of 
appointing delegates to attend the Baltimore National Democratic Con- 
vention. This was in November, 1851. Almost immediately afterwards, 
the Union party called a Union convention, which assembled on the first 
Monday in January last. It was represented by about thirty-six dele- 
gates, from twelve or fourteen counties. On the 8th of the same month, 
the Democratic Convention proper, assembled, represented by some two 
hundred or more delegates, from fifty-five counties. Our convention 
was called as a Democratic convention. It assembled as a Democratic 
convention. It deliberated as a Democratic convention. It appointed 



270 - ALBERT G. BROWN. 

delegates to tlie Baltimore Convention as a Democratic convention. It 
appointed Democratic electors. It represented emphatically the Demo- 
cracy of Mississippi. Having been beaten on the issues of state policy, 
I repeat, we gave them up. We so publicly announced ; and when we 
met in convention on the 8th of January, it was as Democrats on the 
old issues. 

How was it with the Union Convention ? Was that a Democratic 
convention ? Was there any such pretence ? No, sir ; it assembled as 
a Union convention — a Union meeting to appoint delegates to attend a 
Democratic National Convention. Why, what an idea ! What right 
had such a meeting to appoint delegates to a Democratic National Con- 
vention ? If the Union party, calling themselves Democrats, may appoint 
delegates to the National Democratic Convention, why may not the Free 
Democracy of Ohio, typified in the person of the gentleman across the 
way [Mr. Giddings], do the same thing? They claim to be Democrats, 
and have organized the Free Democracy; and why may not they send 
their representation to the Democratic convention ? Suppose the Free- 
Soil Democrats get up an organization, why may not they send delegates 
too ? and why may not every other faction and political organization 
have its representatives there ? No, sir ; if there is to be a Union party, 
let there be a Union Convention. If certain gentlemen have become so 
etherealized that the Democratic organization does not suit them, let 
them stay out of the Democratic Convention. When they put on the 
proper badge — when they take down the Union flag, and run up the old 
Democratic banner, I am for hailing them as brothers — for forgetting 
the past, and looking only to the future. They need not sneak back. 
We will open the door, and let them in. " To err, is human ; to forgive, 
divine." 

Mr, CiiASTAiN (interrupting). I wish to ask the gentleman from 
Mississippi if the platform of the Nashville Convention did not repudiate 
the idea of having anything to do with either of the national conventions 
— the Whig or the Democratic ? 

Mr. Brown. For that convention, the Whig party and the Democratic 
party, as I said before, were alike responsible. The Union party, com- 
posed, as it is, of Whigs and Democrats, must take their part of the 
responsibility for it. Was not Judge Sharkey, a Whig and your Presi- 
dent's appointee to Havana, responsible ? Was he not president of the 
convention, and is he not a Union leader ? Did not Governor Foote 
have a hand in it? Did not Mr. Clemens take his share of responsibility? 
Did not almost all the prominent, leading Union Democrats of the South 
have a part in that convention ? I want to know if these gentlemen may 
slip out and leave us to hold the sack ? The State-Rights Democrats 
of Mississippi, as such, never endorsed the recommendation to which the 
gentleman alludes ; and, therefore, we no more than others are responsi- 
ble for it. If the Union Whigs and Union Democrats will stand by the 
recommendation, they may fairly expect us to do so too ; but it is a very 
pretty business for us to make a joint promise, and then allow them to 
break it, and require us to hold on to it. No, sir. " A contract broken 
on one side, is a contract broken on all sides." 

Mr. Moore of Louisiana (interrupting). The gentleman from Missis- 
sippi mentioned the state of Louisiana in connection with the Nashville 
Convention. I wish merely to state this fact, that a law was introduced 



THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT. 271 



into the legislature of Louisiana authorizing the people to send delegates 
to that convention, but it failed, I do not believe a single man went 
from the state of Louisiana to that convention who was authorized by 
the people to go there. 

Mr. Brown. I cannot stop for these interruptions, as I find that my 
time is fast running out. Now, what did the Democratic party of Mis- 
sissippi mean when they assembled in convention and appointed delegates 
to the Baltimore National Convention ? They meant, sir, to go into that 
convention in good faith, and to act in good faith. We do not believe 
the Democratic party is going to come up to our standard of State- 
Rights, but we know they will come nearer up to it than the Whig party ; 
and we therefore intend to go into the Democratic Convention, with an 
honest purpose to support its nominees. We trust you to make us fair 
and just nominations ; and if you do, we intend to support them. If I 
am asked who the State-Rights Democrats of Mississippi would sustain 
for the presidency, I will answer, they will sustain any good, honest, 
long-tried, and faithful member of the Democratic party, who has never 
practised a fraud upon them. 

I can tell you this, that in going into that convention, the Democracy 
of Mississippi will not ask from it an endorsement of their peculiar no- 
tions — if, indeed, they be peculiar — on the subject of State-Rights. 

Mr. Chastain (interrupting). Let me ask the gentleman if he would 
vote for Mr. Cass ? 

Mr. Brow^n. If I were to answer that question, I might be asked by 
other gentlemen whether I would vote for this man or that man. I do 
not choose to engage in any controversy about men. 

Sir, I was saying that we shall not ask at the hands of the Baltimore 
Convention an endorsement of our peculiar views on the subject of State- 
Rights — if, indeed, these views be peculiar. We shall ask in the name 
of the State-Rights party no place upon the national ticket — neither at 
its head nor at its tail. And when we have aided you on to victory, as we 
expect to do, we shall ask no part of the spoils, for we are not of the 
spoil-loving school. 

What we ask is this : that when we have planted a great principle, 
which we intend to nourish, and, as far as we have the power, protect, you 
shall not put the heel of the National Democracy upon it to crush it. We 
ask that you shall not insult us in your convention, either by offering us 
as. the nominee a man who has denounced us as traitors to our country, 
or by passing any resolutions which shall thus denounce us in words or 
by implication. Leave us free from taunt and insult ; give us a fair 
Democratic nomination, and we will march up to it like men, and we 
will be, where we have always been in our Democratic struggles, not in 
the rear, but in the advance column. We will bear you on to victory ; 
and when victory has been achieved, you may take the spoils and divide « 
them among yourselves. We want no office. Will the Union party give 
this pledge? Of course they will not, for they are committed against 
your nominees in advance, unless certain demands of theirs shall be 
complied with — and among them is the ostracism of the State-Rights 
men. They propose to read out the great body of the Southern Demo- 
crats, and then I suppose make up the deficiency with Whigs. When 
the National Democracy relies on Whig votes to elect its President, it 
had better " hang its harp upon the willow." 



272 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

The State-Rights Democrats will never be found sneaking into any 
party. We ask nothing of our national brethren. If we support the 
nominees, as we expect to do, it will be done, not for pay, but as a labor 
of love — love for old party associations ; love of principles, which we 
hope are not yet quite extinct, and which, we are slow to believe, will 
be extinguished at Baltimore. If we fail to support the nominees, it 
will be because they are such as ought not to have been made. 

We make no professions of love for the Union. Let our acts speak. 

, We have stood by the Constitution and by the rights of the states, as 

defined by our fathers. If this be enmity to the Union, then have we 

been its enemies. We have not made constant proclamation of our 

devotion to the Union, because we have seen no attempt to destroy it, 

» and have therefore seen no necessity for defending it. The danger is 

not that the states will secede from the Union, but rather that the Union 

will absorb the reserved rights of the states, and consolidate them as one 

' state. Against this danger we have raised our warning voice. It has 

not been heeded ; and if disaster befall us from this quarter, we at least 

are not to blame. 

Laudation of the Union is a cheap commodity. It is found on the 
tongue of every demagogue in the country. I by no means say that all 
who laud the Union are demagogues ; but I do say that there is not a 
demao-offue in the Union who does not laud it. It is the bone and sinew, 
the soul and body of all their speeches. With them, empty shouts for 
the Union, the glorious Union, are a passport to favor ; and beyond the 
point of carrying a popular election, they have no ideas of patriotism, 
and care not a fig for the ultimate triumph of our federative system. 

Mr. Chairman, there are many other things to which I should have 
been very glad to make allusion, but I am admonished that my time is 
so nearly out, that I can have no opportunity to take up another point. 
I shall be happy, however, in the few moments that remain of my time, 
to answer any questions that gentlemen may desire to submit. I sup- 
posed, from the disposition manifested by gentlemen a few moments ago 
to interrogate me, that I should necessarily be compelled to answer some 
questions, or seem to shrink from the responsibility of doing so. I 
therefore hurried on to the conclusion of what I deemed it absolutely 
necessary to say, for the purpose of answering those questions. I am 
now ready. 

After a moment's pause, Mr. B. continued : Gentlemen seem not dis- 
posed to press their inquiries, and my time being almost out, I resume 
my seat. 



MlSSISSIPn POLITICS. 



MISSISSIPPI POLITICS. 

SPEECH IN REPLY TO HIS COLLEAGUE, HON. JOHN D. FREEMAN, ON THE 

STATE OF PARTIES IN MISSISSIPPL DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE 

OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 30, 1852. 

Averse as I am to the continuance of a controversy with mj col- 
leagues on the subject of Mississippi politics, I am not the less con- 
strained to reply to a speech of my colleague, from the third district, 
which I find printed in the Globe of the 19th of this month. I am 
wholly at a loss to account for the ill temper which the speech exhibits. 
Surely there was nothing said by me to call forth such a reply. One 
of my colleagues [Mr. Wilcox], when the " homestead bill" was under 
debate, made a party speech, in which he represented, among other 
things, that my friends in Mississippi were attempting to " sneak back" 
into the Democratic party. It became my imperative duty to reply, 
and I did so. My colleague rejoined, and here I supposed the matter 
might very well have rested. But the gentleman [Mr. Freeman] 
returned from an excursion to New York, and without the least provo- 
cation from me, took up the cudgel, and proceeds to deliver himself of 
a speech full of acrimony ; so full, indeed, that one as familiar as I am 
with the productions of his usually cool head, could hardly repress the 
conviction that a " torpid liver" must have influenced the calmer im- 
pulses of his mind. 

If he entered the lists because he fancied that his friend had not suc- 
cessfully met my positions, I not only forgive him, but confess myself 
flattered by his consideration. " Thrice armed is he who hath his 
quarrel just;" and though my three colleagues should all assail me, 
armed, trebly armed as I am in the justice of my cause, I shall not 
despair of success against them all. 

The gentleman tells us, in the opening paragraphs of his speech, that 
the pious philanthropists at the North have " decoyed, caught, and har- 
bored some twenty-five or thirty thousand of our slaves, and that 
we never expect to see them again," Precious confession! If the 
compromise, fugitive slave bill and all, is going to be executed in good 
faith, as my colleague and his Union friends assured the people of Mis- 
sissippi it would be, why should he thus abandon all hope of recovering 
these " twenty-five or thirty thousand" slaves ? The truth is, that all my 
colleagues are very ready to lecture me for a want of faith, but neither 
of them has the least confidence in the efiicacy of the compromise. The 
one [Mr. Freeman] has no expectation that we are to recover our 
"twenty-five or thirty thousand slaves," and the other [Mr. Wilcox], 
less desponding, and yet evidently in doubt, concludes his speech with 
an earnest invocation to the North to do us justice. If the compromise 
were executed in good faith, we should get back our slaves. But, like 
my colleague, I "never expect to see them again." If the North has 
given us justice in the compromise, why this invocation to their sense 

of justice now ? The honest truth is, that in our secret hearts we all 

18 



£74 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

know that justice lias not been clone us, and we have little hope that it 
will be in future. We have submitted to one wrong ; will we submit to 
another? " ^ye never expect to see our slaves again." All that we 
now do, is to invoke justice for the future. 

My colleague, though he ^^ never expects to see the slaves" that have 
been '"'■decoyed, caught, and harbored" by the ^'' pious philanthropists,'' 
is yet full of hope, in the conclusion of his speech, that we are to 
have peace in future. I do not care to be impertinent, but I should 
like to know on what he bases the hope that " decoying, catching, 
and harboring'' slaves is going to cease, and why it is that, despairing 
as he does of recovering the slaves already taken from our possession, 
he is yet confident that we shall recover those that are " decoyed, caught, 
arid harbored" hereafter? At his leisure, I shall be gratified to hear 
his answer. To my mind, we are as likely to recover those already 
" decoyed," as we are to recover those that are taken hereafter. / 
never expect to see the one or the other. The fugitive slave bill has not 
been executed ; and if by its execution is meant an honest and faithful 
surrender of the slaves — such a surrender as is made of every other 
species of estrayed or stolen property — it never will be. 

My colleague commenced his reply to me with an expression of his 
regret that he did not hear my speech. It certainly would have gratified 
me had he given me his audience ; but as he did not, I should have been 
satisfied had he done me the honor to read a printed copy of my speech. 
This I am sure he never could have done. I know my colleague is a 
sensible man, and I hope he is just, and I am well satisfied that no sen- 
sible and just man who had read my speech could ever have published 
such a reply as that which I find printed by order of my colleague. 

If my colleague's speech had been delivered in the House, I should 
have thrown myself upon his indulgence, and asked a portion of his 
allotted hour to correct his errors, as one after another he fell into them. 
But as it suited him better to print his speech without delivering it, I 
am left to no other alternative than that of asking the indulgence of the 
committee whilst I make such responses to his several allegations as in 
my judgment they merit. 

It was an ungenerous fling from my colleague to criticise my remarks 
as he did in the opening paragraph of his speech. He thinks that upon 
such a question as that of appropriating money to continue the work on 
the capitol, I might have said something of the pressing necessities of 
the mechanics and laborers on these works — of the character of the 
work, &c. Now, the plain English of this is, that I made a speech out 
of order, and that an act so unusual called for his special animadversion. 
I am sorry the gentleman did not see at an earlier day the necessity of 
sticking to the subject under debate. Three days before I spoke, our 
colleague from the second district [Mr. Wilcox] made a speech, to which 
the gentleman listened with infinite delight. The subject was " THE 
HOxMESTEAD BILL" of the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson]. 
" Upon such a topic we may have supposed that our colleague would 
have said something of the pressing necessities" of the landless, the 
houseless, and the homeless. " But, much to our surprise, he wandered 
off two thousand miles," to bring up and discuss before us the state of 
parties in Mississippi. The gentleman [Mr. Freeman] heard this speech. 
He enjoyed it. " He rolled it under his tongue as a sweet morsel." It 



MlSSISSIPn POLITICS. 275 

was foreign to the subject under debate. It was out of order. It was 
in advance of any single remark from me on the subject of Mississippi 
politics. But it was from the political twin brother of my colleague, 
and therefore he had no word of rebuke to utter.. But no sooner do I 
rise to "vindicate the truth of history" than my colleague rolls up his 
eyes in well-dissembled horror, and begins a pious lecture on the " press- 
inor necessities of the mechanics and laborers whose work had been sus- 
pended." Why did not the gentleman thus rebuke our colleague from 
the second district, when first he lugged these foreign topics into the 
House of Representatives ? 

My colleague says, " the secret of the gentleman's [my] speech is to 
be found in the fact that the Union Democrats of Mississippi have 
called a state convention, and sent delegates to the Baltimore Conven- 
tion." I am not aware of any secret purpose entertained by me in 
making that speech. It is upon its face my reply to a colleague, and 
no one can read it without seeing that it could only have been suggested 
by the speech to which it was a reply. Let me assure my colleague 
that what he calls " a state convention of the Union Democrats of Mis- 
sissippi" has never given me a moment's uneasiness. I looked upon it 
more in sorrow than in anger. It was a poor abortion at best ; and the 
only concern I ever felt in regard to it was, that it became the 
"slaughter-house" of a few pure-minded and upright Democrats. 

The gentleman says I admitted " that the movement of my party was 
dead," and that " my party was dead." Now, sir, I made no such ad- 
missions ; said nothing from which such an inference could have been 
drawn ; and, if the gentleman shall ever take the trouble to read the 
speech to which he wrote a reply without having listened to its delivery, 
and without reading it after it was delivered, he will see how grossly he 
has misstated what it contains. 

I said the "southern movement was dead;" and so it is; but I said 
explicitly that it was not the movement of my friends or of my party. It 
was, I said, and as I now repeat, the movement of all parties in the 
South — Whigs and Democrats, Union men and State-Rights men. My 
party is not dead nor dying. It lives, and moves, and has a being ; and 
so long as there is true Democracy in the South, it will continue to 
grow and flourish. It is the party of progress. It contains all that 
■is sound in the creed of the ancient fathers, and all that is pure and 
original in that of the "Young Democracy." Its steps are guided by 
the lights of past ages, and its course is onward and upward, to that 
destiny which awaits the votaries of freedom in every land. It is, I 
repeat, neither dead nor dying. Its glory was eclipsed in the late con- 
test in our state, as the glory of the National Democracy was eclipsed 
in 1840, and again in 1848. But these things must pass away, even as 
the clouds pass over the face of a summer sun. The gentleman and his 
party cannot blot out the glory of the true Democracy. Impotent 
attempt ! As well might they strive to eclipse the true glory of the 
sun with the light of a penny candle, as thus to throw discredit upon 
the National Democracy, by their eternal cry of Union, Union. Theirs 
is a feeble light at best. It burns dimly in Georgia and Mississippi, and 
throws a sickly glimmer over a part of Alabama. Everywhere else it 
is lost in the sun-like blaze of a National Democracy — a Democracy which 
is as broad as the continent, and as athletic as Hercules. The demo- 



276 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

cracy of my colleague and his Union allies is of a feeble nature. It is 
constantly going into spasms about the safety of the Union. Ours is 
of a different kind. It has no fears for the safety of the Union. The ■ 
Union is strong, and can defend itself. If it should ever get into m 
trouble, the National Democracy will be ready to give it a helping hand. " 
I had rather rely upon one friend of the Union, who would stand by it 
in the hour of its peril, than a whole regiment of defenders who would 
go into hysterics every time some mad-cap cried " Secession !" 

My colleague says, that after my return home in 1850, the compro- 
mise bills having passed, I made a "violent harangue" in which I said : 
" So help me God, I am for resistence ; and my advice to you is that of 
Cromwell to his colleagues, 'Pray to God, and keep your powder dry.' " 
Here, again, my colleague blunders. I made no " violent harangue' 
after my return home. It is true I made a speech, but it was character- 
ized by everything rather than violence. I had no reason, at that time, 
to suppose that the speech did not meet the approbation of my colleague. 
We were upon terms that would have justified him in communicating 
any disapprobation he may have felt ; and his failure to do so left me 
under the impression that I .had said nothing which shocked his confi- 
dence in my devotion to the Union and the Constitution. 

It is true that I used the two expressions which my colleague attributes 
to me, but not in the connection in which he employs them. I said, after 
the compromise bills had passed, or after it became manifest that they 
would pass, "So help me God, I am for resistance." I used that ex- 
pression here, on this floor. I may have employed it elsewhere. But is 
my colleague at all justified in concluding that I used the term resistance 
as synonymous with secession ? Not at all, sir. When Jefferson, and 
Madison, and Randolph, and Nicholas, and Clay, resisted the alien and 
sedition laws, were they for secession ? When Jackson resisted the 
bank charter, vras he for secession ? When the whole Democracy of the 
nation resisted the tai'iff of 1842, were they all seceders, traitors, and 
disunionists ? I used the term as it had been used from time immemo- 
rial — as expressive of my strong disapprobation of the compromise 
bills, and of my determination to induce my constituents, if possible, to 
withhold from them the meed of their approbation, and to refuse, as far 
as practicable, to allow them to become precedents in the future legisla- 
tion of the country. My constituents have never sanctioned the compro- 
mise. They have never said it met their approbation ; and, in my judg- 
ment, they never will. 

I used, in my speech at home, after my return from Congress, the 
Cromwellian expression which ever since has so much annoyed the 
peculiar guardians of the Union : " Pray to God, but keep your powder 
dry." And it was as if I had said, " Hope for the best, but be pre- 
pared for the worst." The true meaning of this expression will be 
understood when I state, that on that occasion , as now, I said appear- 
ances, in my judgment, are delusive. We have suffered much at the 
hands of the North, and we have not seen the end. We are destined to 
suffer much more. Some gentlemen say we have a final, and lasting, 
and eternal settlement of the slavery question. / hope it may he so. 
But I am incredulous; I would not cease to watch on such an assurance; 
I would hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst. " I would 
pray to God, but keep my powder dry." 



MISSISSIPPI POLITICS. 277 

The gentleman takes up the message and general policy of Governor 
Quitman, and attempts to hold the Democracy of Mississippi responsi- 
ble for all he ever said and did. I will make this bargain with my col- 
league : If he will undertake to be responsible for all that Governor 
Foote has said and written, I will respond for the writings and sayings 
of Governor Quitman. Secession, disunion, revolution, southern rights, 
and similar terms, are as common along the path that General Foote 
made in the congressional record as mile-posts on a turnpike ; and yet 
the gentleman passes over all these, and attacks Quitman's message. I 
leave others to decide whose " platter is clean on the outside," and whose 
is "filled with rottenness and dead men's bones." If my colleague's 
platter is clean without or within, it has, to my mind, a marvellous 
strange way of showing it. 

The gentleman says that on the day the message of Governor Quit- 
man appeared, " the Union Democrats then at the seat of government 
denounced it as treasonable to the nation, and they so denounce it 
now." 

The day that Governor Quitman's message was delivered, there was as- 
sembled at the seat of government (Jackson) a convention. It was not a 
Democratic convention ; it was not a Union Democratic convention ; it 
was a convention in which the Democrats stood to the Whigs as about one 
to five. This convention denounced the governor's message, it is true. 
But I never heard before that the voice of denunciation was that of the 
Union Democrats. I heard it at the time as the voice of the Union 
party, and then, as now, I recognised it as the growl of Whiggery. 

But how came there to be a convention at the seat of government ? 
Was it called to deliberate on the governor's message ? Not at all. 
This could not be ; for the convention was composed of persons (chiefly 
Whigs) from all parts of the state, and it had actually assembled and 
was in session at the very moment when the governor's message was de- 
livered. For what purpose did it assemble ? Not, certainly, to con- 
sider a message yet not made public, and the contents of which were as 
little known to the members of that body before they assembled as to 
the people of China. I judge of the purpose of its assemblage by 
what it did. It formed, created, and brought into being the Union 
party. Mark you, it was not the Union Democratic party. There was 
no "Democratic" about it. It was the Union party ; and it was formed 
outside of, above, and beyond the Democratic party. It was an attempt 
to form a third party. It failed; and then the ringleaders threw an 
anchor to the windward. Then it was that, finding the National Whigs 
and National Democrats were laughing at them, my colleague and his 
Union friends hung out the " Democratic" banner. At first it was all 
Union ; and when they found the Union would not save them, they called 
themselves Union Democrats. 

One of my colleagues [Mr. Nabers] the other day asked, in the 
course of his speech, " What it was that constituted party ? Was it 
numbers or principles?" He said it was numbers, and as there were 
numbers in Mississippi who avowed themselves secessionists, he con- 
cluded there was a secession party there. My colleague's premises are 
badly laid, and his conclusions do not follow his premises. Numbers 
do not constitute p;*rty. It takes principles and numbers both to con- 
stitute party ; and it takes something else — it takes the organization of 



278 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

numbers on principle to constitute party. Whenever the gentleman 
shows that the secession numbers in Mississippi were organized on the 
principle of seceding from the Union, he will have shown that there 
•was a secession party in Mississippi. And then I will show that neither 
I nor my friends belonged to or constituted a part of these numbers. 

There are two, and only two, political organizations in our state — the 
"Union party" and the "Democratic State-Rights organization." I 
never heard of the Union Democratic party until after the elections 
were over, and a convention was about to be called to send delegates to 
Baltimore. The candidates in the state elections were announced as 
Union candidates and Democratic State-Rights candidates. The tickets 
were printed " Union tickets" and " Democratic State-Rights tickets." 

It is strange how a sensible man hates to confess he has done a silly 
thing. I know my colleague [Mr. Freeman] feels bad. He feels that 
he has been playing truant to the party of which he professes to be a 
member. The best way to get out of it is to confess his folly, quit all 
this tom-foolery about the Union, and settle down again into a quiet, 
orderly citizen, and betake himself to the study of true Democracy. I 
commend to him the consolation held out in the two lines : — 

" While the lamp holds out to burn 
The vilest sinner may return." 

The gentleman expresses some strange ideas about the anxiety of my 
friends and myself to get into the Baltimore Convention. 1 must con- 
fess this part of his speech is all jargon to me. " We have on the wed- 
ding garment," — " our lamps are trimmed," and I know of no reason 
for any anxiety on our part. We are Democrats, and have always been. 
We appointed our delegates in the usual way, and upon my Avord, I can 
see no reason to doubt that we shall take our seats like other members 
of the family. So far as my colleague's remarks apply to me personally, 
I can only say that I am not an appointed delegate ; and in this he and 
I are alike. He has been appointed by a Union convention, it is true. 
But I take it, a Union convention has no more right to appoint dele- 
gates to a Democratic convention, than the Pope of Rome would have 
to appoint the pastor of a Methodist church. 

One of the strangest features in the gentleman's speech is, that the 
whole Democratic party of Mississippi are secessionists, because certain 
county meetings and certain newspapers promulgated secession doctrines 
and sentiments. Is my colleague serious in this ? If he is, I will show 
in ten seconds, by the same rule of evidence, that he is a Whig. He 
proves that I am a secessionist, because the Mississippian, Free-Trader, 
Sentinel, and other Democratic papei'S, used expressions supposed to 
indicate, more or less, a disposition to secede. Suppose I take up the 
Yicksburg Whig, Natchez Courier, Holly Springs Gazette, and other 
Whig papers now in the service of the gentleman, and show that they 
are for the Whig cause and Whig principles throughout — does not the 
gentleman, by his own rule, thereby become a Whig ? He does. And 
yet, sir, I do not pretend to say that he is a Whig. Parties are to be 
judged by what they say and do in their organic capacity, and not by 
the acts and speeches of individual members of the party. Before a 
party can be justly held responsible for the acts and speeches of any 
one or more of its members, it must be shown that such members had 



MISSISSIPPI POLITICS. 279 

authority to speak for the party. This can never be done when the 
party in convention has spoken for itself. In such cases individual 
members become responsible for their own expressions, and the party, 
as a whole, and each member of it, is responsible for what the organic 
body, the convention, has said. By this rule I am ready to see my 
party tried, and by it I mean to try the gentleman and his party. 

He introduces a series of resolutions, which he says were passed by 
the convention which nominated Governor Quitman. Numbers 5 and 6, 
as I find them in his speech, were resolutions originally passed by a joint 
convention of both parties — Whigs and Democrats — in our state. They 
were copied by our convention simply because they had received the 
sanction of all parties, and were, therefore, not liable to objection, as we 
supposed, from any quarter. The same resolutions had been reaffirmed 
by the Union Convention, and now stand as a part of their platform. 
/Such at least is my recollection. 

The resolution number 12, as printed by my colleague, declares the 
admission of California into the Union to be the " Wilmot proviso in 
another form." This resolution, as my colleague knows very well, em- 
bodies the substance of a letter written by the Mississippi delegation in 
the last Congress (including Governor Foote) to Governor Quitman. I 
hope Governor Foote, and my colleague as his supporter, will each take 
his share of the responsibility. / a.yn ivilling to take mine. 

Next come a series of resolutions passed by the Nashville Convention 
in June, 1850, and incorporated into our platform in June, 1851. These 
resolutions were passed at Nashville, when Judge Sharkey was presid- 
ing — when the convention was full of what is now called Union men — 
and they received the deliberate sanction of them all. They were 
approved at the time by Governor Foote and by my colleague, and if 
they afterwards denounced them, the most they can say of us who sus- 
tained them is, that we stuck to what we said a little longer than ' 
they did. 

But my colleague thus speaks of this very Nashville Convention and its 
acts, in the speech to which I am now replying. He says : " For the first 
session of the Nashville Convention, all parties were and are responsible. 
I take my own share of it." Why, sir, these resolutions were passed 
by i\\e first session of this convention. And again : To this convention 
the gentleman attributes the success of the compromise, and the defeat 
of the Wilmot proviso. He takes his share of the responsibility, and 
yet he quarrels with us because we incorporate a part of its wonderful 
works into our platform. If these works had dohe the mighty things 
1 e attributes to them, he might at least have spared them the bitter 
denunciation he has heaped upon them. 

This disposes of our resolutions so far as I find them copied in my 
colleague's speech, with but a single exception, and that is an immate- 
rial one. Here it is : — 

16. " Resolved, That it is a source of heartfelt congratulation that the true friends of 
the Constitution and of the rights and honor of the South, of whatever party mtme, 
are now united in a common cause, and can act together with cordiality and sincerity." 

And here is my colleague's commentary on it : — 

" What a beautiful specimen of ' old line Democracy,' ' Black spirits and white, 
blue spirits and gray.' " 



280 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

When before was it doubted that the "old line Democracy" "were 
the true friends of the Constitution?" When before were the true 
friends of the South sneered at as " black spirits and white, blue spirits 
and gray?" When before was it considered a matter of reproach that 
the friends of the Constitution and of the South acted together with 
cordiality ? I leave my colleague to answer. 

The gentleman is at great pains to leave the impression on the minds 
of those who shall read his speech, that the Democratic party of Mis- 
sissippi approved of and made a part of its creed the address, or resolu- 
tions, or some other of the proceedings of the second session of the 
Nashville Convention. Now, sir, I say emphatically, that he is mistaken. 
We never did, as a party, in any manner, shape, or form, by resolution 
or otherwise, endorse, approve, or sanction the proceedings of the second 
session of that body. He admits his own and his party's responsibility 
for the^rs^ session, but attacks the second session of the Nashville Con- 
vention. The second was but a continuation of the first. The gentle- 
man's party never endorsed the acts of this second session, nor did 
mine. For the proceeding of the June Nashville Convention, my friends 
and myself made ourselves responsible. But if my colleague shall show 
that we made ourselves responsible for the acts of the November 
session of that body, he will show what I have not yet seen. 

My colleague argues that the Union movement grew out of the 
doctrines contained in the Quitman message, and the acts and resolutions 
of the second session of the Nashville Convention ; so, at least, I under- 
stand him. The Union movement in Mississippi could not have grown 
out of that message, nor could it in any way have been influenced by 
the second session of the convention at Nashville. The Union party 
was organized at a mass Union meeting in Jackson, on the 18th Novem- 
ber, 1850. On that day the governor's message was delivered to the 
legislature, and on that day the convention assembled at Nashville, Ten- 
nessee — four hundred miles oflf. The Union mass meeting was not, there- 
fore, assembled to deliberate upon the one or the other of these things. 
Of both, the members of that body were profoundly ignorant at the 
time of their assemblage. The Union party was organized by this mass 
meeting. It held a convention in April, 1851, and under the style of 
" Union men," put its candidates in the field. The " Democratic State- 
Rights party" met in June, 1851, and made its nominations, calling them 
" Democratic State-Rights men." 

Our position in the canvass was, that a state had the abstract right to 
secede from the Union, and to do it peaceably. For taking this posi- 
tion, we have been denounced as secessionists and disunionists, although 
we declared, in the same sentence in which we asserted the right, that it 
was " the last resort, the final alternative, and that we opposed its present 
exercise." 

What was the position of my colleague and his party ? They desig- 
nated six distinct acts, the doing of any one of which would justify 
resistance, and among these was the repeal of the fugitive slave law, or 
its material modification. My colleague, I believe, endorsed, and' per- 
haps yet endorses, the Georgia platform. It declares that " Georgia will 
resist, even to a disruption of every tie that binds her to the Union, the 
repeal of the fugitive slave bill;" and further, that, in her judgment. 



MlSSISSIPn rOLITICS. 281 

" the perpetuity of our much-loved Union depends upon the faithful 
execution of that law." 

When I say I am for resistance, my colleague says I mean secession, 
or disunion. And pray, sir, when he says that he is for resistance, 
what does he mean ? He will not secede, but he will resist if the fugitive 
slave law is repealed. Yes, sir, he Avill 7'esist, even to a disruption of 
every tie that binds him to the Union ; but he will not secede. He will 
perpetrate no such "abominable heresy" as peaceable secession. He 
will resist, he will sever the ties that bind him to the Union ; but he will 
not do it peaceably — that is a heresy too abominable to be thought of. 
Well, sir, there is no disputing about tastes ; but, I must confess, if it 
shall ever become necessary to "sever the ties," as I trust it never may, 
I shall prefer to see it done peaceably. 

If language means anything, the gentleman's party in Mississippi was 
about as far committed to secession, by their resolutions, as was my 
party. I shall hold myself responsible for the resolutions of my party 
in general convention, and I ask the gentleman to assume no higher 
degree of responsibility himself. 

My colleague complains that a Democratic senate in Mississippi 
elected a Whig (Judge Guion) to preside over it. This was not the first 
time that such an event had happened, and therefore it was not even 
singular. In the palmiest days of Jacksonism, Colonel Bingaman, an 
old-fashioned John Quincy Adams Whig, was elected both Speaker of 
the House and President of the Senate ; and I heard nothins: said against 
it. It caused no political convulsion in the state. Men and parties 
moved on just as they did before. It was a tribute to his high character 
and exalted worth as a gentleman and a native Mississippian. A Demo- 
cratic Senate did the same thing for Guion, than whom Mississippi boasts 
no more noble, generous, and talented son. If Democratic senators 
were willing to waive their claims to the president's chair, and the Demo- 
cratic party made no objection to Guion's election, pray, sir, who else 
had a right to complain ? But, says the gentleman, " When the Whig 
president was elected, the secession governor (Quitman) resigned, and 
placed that Whig president of the senate in the office of governor." I 
can appreciate my colleague's "affliction of soul" at the accession of a 
Whig to the gubernatorial chair ; but I hope he may find consolation in 
the fact, that the Whigs have done him some service in their day and 
generation. 

My colleague cannot, I am sure, mean to convey the idea that Quit- 
man resigned with a view of conferring the office of governor on Judge 
Guion. My colleague is very familiar with the facts attending Governor 
Quitman's resignation. He knows how he was charged with participat- 
ing in the first Lopez expedition to Cuba. lie knows that whilst others, 
who confessed to have been at Oardetias, were permitted to visit this 
city, and to travel everywhere, without molestation, Quitman was hunted 
like a common felon, and finally forced to resign the office of governor. 
He knows, too, that when he presented himself in New Orleans, and 
demanded a trial, the prosecution was instantly abandoned. All this 
my colleague knows. There is abasement enough in it for our state, 
God knows, without making the resignation of the governor the pretext '' 
for further charges. 

The gentleman speaks of a "standing army," projected by Governor 



282 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Quitman, and recommended by him to the legislature. And this, he 
says, was a part of the "secession scheme." I have heard of this 
"standing army" before, and I will exhibit the monster in all its pro- 
portions. Some years back, when the gentleman was attorney-general, 
and I wa^ governor of Mississippi, the subject of reorganizing the militia 
was discussed. It may have escaped the recollection of my colleague, 
but it has not mine, that we concurred in the opinion, that the militia 
system of the state was a nuisance. Accordingly, in preparing the 
executive message, I brought the subject to the attention of the legisla- 
ture ; but nothing was done. My successor, Governor Matthews, took 
up the subject, and pressed it on the attention of the legislature ; but 
with no better success. When Governor Quitman came into power, he 
took it up where Governor Matthews and myself had left it, and, like 
ourselves, he failed in getting the favorable action of the legislature. 

I always regarded this " standing army" as one of the humbugs of the 
campaign. I had the fullest confidence in the wisdom and patriotism 
of Governor Quitman, and I confess, therefore, never to have examined 
critically his scheme for reorganizing the militia. But if I am not mis- 
taken, it will be seen by reference to the record, that he was following 
out substantially the positions taken by me, and which I had no reason 
to suppose met the disapprobation of my present colleague and the late 
attorney-general of Mississippi. 

If there was not much more in this "standing army" than I have 
supposed, it is mine ; I claim it by right of invention. It was my 
squadron ; I first put it in the field. But as the relations of Mississippi 
with the Federal government were at the time of a most pacific charac- 
ter, not extending beyond a dispute about a very small fraction of the 
two per cent, fund, and as the Compromise had not been heard of, I 
hope to escape the imputation of harboring hostile designs against our 
venerable relative, " Uncle Sam." 

The whole extent, body and breeches, of the " standing army," as I 
understand it, is this : It was an attempt to substitute an organized 
corps of volunteers for the ridiculous and troublesome militia trainings 
that are now required by law. In what precise terms it was presented 
by Governor Quitman, I say again, I do not know. But this is the 
monster as I have seen him in all his huge proportions. 

The gentleman next charges that Colonel Tarpley, a Democrat, was 
ruled off, and Governor Guion, a Whig, recommended for chancellor of 
Mississippi. It so happens that there was no ruling off in the case. Both 
gentlemen agreed to submit their pretensions to an informal meeting of 
mutual friends. Those friends advised Colonel Tarpley to withdraw, 
and, like a true man and a Democrat, he did it. One would naturally 
conclude that my colleague, from his manner of speaking about this 
transaction, would have voted for Colonel Tarpley, the Democrat, if he 
had continued in the canvass. But I tell you he would have done no 
such thing. He had already made up his mind to vote for Charles Scott, 
another Whig. His party had him in the field, and they all voted for 
him, and, what is more, with a little help from our side they elected him. 
When my colleague votes for a Whig himself, he takes no account of it. 
It is all very natural that he should do so. But if I, or my friends, do 
the same thing, then it is all wrong. My colleague, in all this, seems to 



MISSISSIPPI POLITICS. 283 

admit that we are the old liners, " the salt of the party," and it grieves 
him to see us going astray. I thank him for the admonition. True men 
should be always circumspect. More latitude may be allowed those to 
whom no one looks for examples of iBdelity to the party. 

In extenuation of this atrocious charge, so vehemently laid against 
my party and myself, of having voted for a Whig chancellor, I may 
mention a few facts. For twenty years, the people of Mississippi have 
elected their own judges, and in no single instance within my knowledge 
has a judge ever been chosen on partj'- grounds until it was done by the 
Utiion party. It stands to the everlasting credit of our people that 
they did, with Roman firmness, withstand for twenty years all the 
appeals of the politicians to mix up politics with the administration of 
justice. Judge Sharkey was again and again elected from a Democratic 
district, though he was always a Whig. Judge Posey, though a Demo- 
crat, has presided with dignity and ability for a long time in a Whig 
district. Judge Miller, a Whig, was elected and re-elected in the 
strongest Democratic district in the state. It is not to the credit of the 
Union men that they departed from this time-honored usage. And I 
think the example they have set us will be " more honored in the breach 
than in the observance." 

The gentleman intimates, that after the September election of 1851 
had resulted adversely to my party I changed my policy, and by a 
timely retreat saved myself from defeat. No one knows better than my 
colleague that such an insinuation is grossly unjust. After the result 
of the September election was known, and when the Union party was 
fuller of exultation than it ever was before or since, and in the midst of 
their rejoicings, I published an address to the people of my district. A 
few short extracts from this address will show how much I quailed 
before the frowns of a party flushed with victory. This publication was 
made to vindicate myself against the slanders of my enemies. I 
said : — 

" ' There are my speeches and there my votes; I stand by and defend them. Yon say 
for these my country will repudiate me. I demand a trial of the issue.' This was my 
language in the first speech made by me after my return from Washington. I repeat 
it now. I said then, as I say now, that the charge laid against me that I was, or ever 
had been, for disunion or secession, was and is false and slanderous." 

If I Stood by my votes and speeches, and defended them to the last, 
in what is the evidence of my faltering to be found ? I submit the con- 
cluding paragraphs of this address : — 

" In the approaching election, I asked the judgment of my constituents on my past 
course. I claim no exemption from the frailties common to all mankind. That I 
have erred is possible, but that the interests of my constituents have suffered from 
my neglect, or that I have intentionally done any act or said anything to dishonor 
them in the eyes of the world, or to bring discredit upon our common country, is not 
true. In all that I have said or done, my aim has been for the honor, the happiness, 
and the true glory of my state. 

_ " I opposed the Compromise with all the power I possessed. I opposed the admis- 
sion of California, the division of Texas, the abolition of the slave trade in the District 
of Colunabia, and I voted against the Utah bill. I need scarcely say that I voted for 
the Fugitive Slave bill, and aided, as far as I could, in its passage. I opposed the 
Compromise. 

•' I thought, with Mr. Clay, that ' it gave almost everything to the North, and to the 
South nothing but her honor.' 



284 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

" I thought, with Mr. "Webster, that the ' South got what the North lost — and that 
was nothing at all.' 

"I thought, with Mr. Brooks, that the 'North carried everything before her.' 
" I thought with Mr. Clemens, that ' there was no equity to redeem the outrage.' 
" I thought, with Mr. Downs, that ' it was no compromise at all.' 
" I thought, with Mr. Freeman, ' that the North got the oyster and we got the 
shell.' 

" I thought, at the last, what General Foote thought at the first, that ' it contained 
none of the features of a genuine Compromise.'* 

" And finally, and last, I voted against it, and spoke against it, because it unset- 
tled the balance of power between the two sections of the Union, inflicted an injury 
upon the South, and struck a blow at that political equality of the states and of the 
people, on which the Union is founded, and without a maintenance of which the Union 
cannot be preserved. 

" I spoke against it, and voted against it, in all its forms. I was against it as an 
omnibus, and I was against it in its details. I fought it through from Alpha to Omega, 
and I would do so again. I denounced it before the people, and down to the last 
hour I continued to oppose it. The people have decided that the state shall acquiesce, 
and with me that decision is final. I struggled for what I thought was the true 
interest and honor of my constituents, and if for this they think me worthy of con- 
demnation, I am ready for the sacrifi-ce. For opposing the Compromise, I have no 
apologies or excuses to offer ; I did that which my conscience told me was right, and 
the only regret I feel is that my opposition was not more availing." 

This is what the gentleman calls meek and lowly submission. These 
were my positions on the day of my election ; they were the positions 
of my entire party; they are our positions now ; we submitted to nothing 
but the voice of our state. Then, as now, when Mississippi speaks we 
are ready to obey ; the state had a right to decide for herself what, if 
anything, was necessary in vindication of her honor. She made that 
decision, and of it I thus spoke in the address from which I have been 
reading. 

" I opposed and denounced the Compromise, but I did not thereby make myself a 
disunionist. 1 thought in the beginning that it inflicted a positive injury upon the 
South, and I think so now. This opinion is well settled, and is not likely to undergo 
any material change. I gave my advice freely, but never obtrusively, as to the course 
which I thought the state ought to pursue. That advice has not been taken. Missis- 
sippi has decided that submission to or acquiescence in the compromise measures is 
her true policy. As a citizen, I bow to the judgment of my state. I wish her 
JUDGMENT HAD BEEN OTHERWISE — but from her decision I ask no appeal." 

After this publication was made, my colleague and General Foote 
both visited my district with special reference to my defeat. Others 
traversed it. The newspapers became more reckless than ever. Slander 
upon slander was " piled up like Pelion upon Ossa, until the very heavens 
cried for quarters." But all to no effect. And now we have the sickly 
excuse rendered, that I turned " submissionist." The charge is entitled 
to my pity and contempt, and I give them both without stint and with- 
out grudging. 

The gentleman speaks of ray willingness to beg my way into the Bal- 
timore Convention. In this he is about as accurate as in his other 
statements. So far from begging my way into the Baltimore Convention, 
I have expressly declined going in at all. I wrote to my party friends 
at home requesting not to be named as a delegate. I did so because 
our party had, years ago, from proper motives, determined to exclude 
members of Congress from presidential conventions, and I wanted no 

* General Foote, in speaking of Mr. Clay's compromise resolutions, said : " I shall 
always be unable to see in his resolutions, any of the features of a genuine compro- 
mise." The allusion is to this expression. 



MISSISSIPPI POLITICS. 285 

departure from the rule in my case. If the gentleman means that I am 
begging for the admission of my friends, he is again mistaken. I know 
the strength of the true Democracy of Mississippi. We polled within 
a thousand of a majority at the last election, and we can poll many more 
at another trial. And I suppose the nominees at Baltimore and their 
friends will be quite as anxious to receive our votes as we will be to give 
them. This, however, was one of the gentleman's ill-tempered flings, to 
which a reply is hardly necessary. No man of sound judgment, not 
carried away by passion, can suppose that there will be any more ques- 
tion about the admission of the delegates from Mississippi than from 
any other state. I have not canvassed the question, because I never 
supposed that it admitted of a doubt in any man's mind, except that of 
the gentleman himself, and his friend Governor Foote. 

The gentleman thinks it singular that I should expect to enter the 
Baltimore Convention with opinions not altogether in harmony with the 
sentiments of Democrats elsewhere. Let us see how much there is in 
all this. Let us see in what my views " differ from the great body of 
the National Democracy." And let us inquire whether these differences 
of opinion have not been tolerated on former occasions. There are 
three classes of Democrats : Federal Democrats, Union Democrats, and 
State-Rights Democrats. And the question on which we differ is this : 
"What redress has a state, suffering intolerable oppression from the 
Federal government?" or, "What remedy has a state for a violation of 
the compact between herself and the Federal government?" It will be 
observed that the question is one which each state must, of necessity, 
decide for itself. And every individual will decide it for himself accord- 
ing to his federal or republican proclivities. A Federal Democrat would 
say that a state should submit, under any and all circumstances. A Union 
Democrat would advise revolution, and he would, I suppose, lead a rebel 
army ; but where to, and against whom, God only knows. A State- 
Rights Democrat would advocate 'peaceable secession. But we all agree 
that each state must be left free to shape its own policy. No one would 
think of consulting the Federal government, or the National Executive, 
as to what a state should do in such a case. National parties and 
national conventions have nothing to do with state policy, and have no 
right to instruct a state as to "the mode and measure of redress" in 
cases of " infractions of the compact." It follows, therefore, that the 
Baltimore Convention can have nothing to do with the policy of Missis- 
sippi; and if it shall assume to tell her what are her rights as a member 
of the Confederacy, it will transcend its authority, and its act, in this 
regard, will be null and void. The Baltimore Convention will commit 
no such folly. It is a question of state policy, with which national 
parties, national Executives, and national conventions, have no concern. 
Now let us see whether, in days gone by, the Democracy of Mississippi 
has been required to submit its local or state policy to the supervision 
of a national convention. 

Three times the Democracy of Mississippi has shaped the policy of 
that state without consulting the Democracy of other states. Twenty 
years ago, the Democracy of Mississippi determined to elect judges by 
the people. It was a bold innovation. New York, Pennsylvania, and 
other states, laughed at our temerity. But New York, Pennsylvania, 
and other states, have followed our example. 



286 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Fifteen years ago, Mississippi Democracy set its face against banks 
and banking. Under the lead of McNutt every bank in the state was 
swept away. We took the lead. The Democracy of other states hesi- 
tated, and finally refused to follow. 

Twelve years ago, the Democracy of our state declared against paying 
certain bonds, issued in the name of the state, and bearing its seal. 
The Democracy of other states was horror-stricken ; but we had our 
own way. 

In no one of these cases had we the support or countenance of the 
National Democracy ; and in all of them there were bolters from the 
party, who denounced it, as my colleague now denounces us. When we 
resolved to elect judges by the people, they called us anarchists and 
levellers. When we made war upon the banks, we were Jacobins and 
Red Republicans. When we were opposing the bonds, they denounced 
us as repudiators and public plunderers. The true Democracy of Missis- 
sippi survived the gibes and taunts of its enemies in those days ; and it 
will survive the denunciations of the gentleman and his associates now. 
We settled all these cases without losing our identity with the National 
Democracy, and without consulting its wishes. And we never failed to 
meet them on national questions, in national conventions ; and Ave shall 
not fail now. We shall not dictate what others are to do in vindication 
of their rights, nor will we tolerate dictation from others as to how we 
shall defend our own. 

The gentleman, strangely enough, misunderstands what I said respect- 
ing General Foote's being at one time a Whig. He speaks of Colonel 
Fall, Colonel Miller, and other Democrats, having represented the Whig 
county of Hinds. In this he misses the point. These gentlemen were 
all elected as Democrats. It was a high tribute to their worth, to be 
elected from a strong Whig county ; yet it caused great labor and extra- 
ordinary diligence on the part of their friends. General Foote had an 
easier time of it. He run as a Whig. lie was elected as a Whig. He 
served as a Whig. As a member from Hinds county he voted, as the 
journals show, for a Whig United States senator. I hope I am now 
more clearly understood. 

I should never have introduced the name of General Foote into this 
debate, if it had not become necessary in vindication of Governor Quit- 
man. I commend to my colleague a homely adage, " that those who 
live in glais houses should not throw stones." 

My colleague " thanks God" that his party had in its ranks "many 
gallant and patriotic Whigs." It may be all a matter of taste, but it 
seems to me it would have been more appropriate if he had returned his 
thanks to another quarter. I can hardly think it was a celestial influence 
that made the " gallant and patriotic Whigs of Mississippi " the followers 
of my colleague. But I discern in this part of the gentleman's speech 
two things worthy of commendation — gratitude and common sense. It 
is right that he should, in this or in some other way, manifest his grati- 
tude to those who elected him. And it indicates good common sense to 
retain, as far as he can, the good opinion of his Whig friends. It is 
very certain that they will be needed in another election, if my colleague 
should be a candidate. 

It may be that my colleague has captured a large number of Whigs, 
and means to march them into the Democratic camp. I have heard 



MISSISSIPPI POLITICS. 287 

sucli an intimation. If it turns out to be true, I hope he will post his 
captives in the rear, and not in the front of our line. And I would par- 
ticularly caution him against giving them commissions and high rank, 
until he is certain they will be faithful to our flag. It is not safe to 
make commanders of those too recently taken from the ranks of the 
enemy. They may betray us in the hour of trial ; or, from the force of 
habit, turn their arms against us. Besides, the old veterans in our ranks 
may object to following these captive commanders. Senator Brooke, for 
example, is an excellent Whig, and, for aught I know, he is a very good 
Union Democrat; but I know many an " old liner" who would not like 
to follow his lead in a presidential campaign. 

My colleague is sensitive when allusion is made to an existing con- 
nection between the Whigs and Union Democrats. He has reason to 
be. The success of the Union party in Mississippi has given the Whio-s 
more offices and more patronage than they have enjoyed for many years. 
If the gentleman means well towards the Democratic party, he cannot 
but regret that, through the instrumentality of his party friends, the 
most influential and important places in the state have been given to the 
• Whigs. It is due to the Whigs for me to say, they have selected men of 
high character, and such as will be likely to make their present official 
positions felt in future elections. I honor them for their sagacity. 

My colleague introduces a silly story about my settling in the Demo- 
cratic county of Copiah, and hei^^g soon after sent to the legislature, and 
about my meeting a former Whig friend, who inquired how it was that 
the Democrats of Copiah sent a Whig to the legislature ; and.some other 
twaddle of the same sort. The story, if it had any purpose, was intended 
to leave the impression that I had at one time been a Whig. I am sorry 
that my position in Mississippi has been so humble that it has failed to 
attract the attention of the gentleman. He is entirely ignorant of my 
personal history, else he never could have retailed second-hand, and 
much less have coined, such a story. Instead of my settling in Copiah, 
and being soon after sent to the legislature, I went there with my father 
when I was eight years old, and have resided there ever since, except 
when absent in the public service. At the early age of twenty-one, I 
was sent to the legislature as a Democrat, and at each succeedino- elec- 
tion, from then until now, I have been a candidate. I have invariably , 
run as a Democrat, and have never suffered defeat. There is not an old 
Democrat in my congressional district, and scarcely one in the state, that 
could not contradict the implied declaration of the gentleman, that I had 
been a Whig. If the story was meant for wit, it was flat; if intended 
for effect, it was simply ridiculous. My colleague need not concern 
himself about my position, nor his own. I have been in the party all 
the time. He has the right to return, and, like a truant boy who had • 
been a day from school, take his place at the foot of the class. I hope 
he will do it without grumbling. 

The gentleman speaks of the "so-called Democratic State-Rights 
Convention," to send delegates to the Baltimore Convention. As usual 
he mistakes the facts. There was ho call of a " Democratic State-Rights 
Convention" in Mississippi to send delegates to the Baltimore Conven- 
tion. The call was for a "Democratic Convention." It was made 
as such calls have usually been made, through the central organ of the 
party — the Mississippian. The gentleman errs again in saying, "it » 



288 ALBEET G. BROWN. 

was simply an editorial article." It was a call made in the usual way 
and through the usual channel, and upon consultation Avith the oldest, 
longest tried, and most substantial members of the party residing at 
and near the seat of government. The call embraced the vjhole party, 
witliout reference to past diflFerences ; and it was responded to by the 
party generally in Mississippi. Soon after the appearance of this call, 
several members of the " Compromise Convention," then at Jackson, 
issued a call for a " Union Democratic Convention ;" thus marking, in 
distinct terms, their resolution not to unite with the great body of the 
party. It is worthy of remark in this connection, that the gentlemen 
calling this convention used the term " Union Democratic Convention." 
And it was the first time within my recollection that this term ever was 
used in Mississippi to designate an organized party. I had heard of 
" Union Whigs" and " Union Democrats," but it applied to individuals 
only. When the party, the organization.^ was spoken of, it was called 
the " Union party." That is my recollection. 

I repeat, sir, the Democratic convention in our state which appointed 
delegates to the Baltimore Convention, was called as a Democratic con- 
vention^ and not as a ^^ so-called Democratic State-Bights convention." 
But why should my colleague have such a horror of "State-Rights?" 
Is he not a State-Rights man ? He may think that an oppressed state 
has no right but the right of submission, or revolution, and that if she 
judges for herself of "infractions of the compact," and of the "mode 
and measure of redress," the federal government mag reduce her and 
hold her as* a conquered 'province. This may be his notion of state rights. 
But I recollect that in 1841 (and I appeal to the public newspapers in 
Mississippi for the correctness of my recollection) the gentleman ran on 
the "Democratic State-Rights ticket" for attorney-general in our state. 
He had no horror of state rights then. In that year the term " Demo- 
cratic" meant the right of the people to rule, and " State Rights" meant 
the right of the state to reject the payment of an unjust demand for 
money. Our opponents said, I know, that Democratic State Rights 
meant repudiation. My colleague won his first laurels in this celebrated 
campaign. In 1851, ten years after, he hoisted the " Democratic State- 
Rights banner" again. Democratic meant, as in 1841, the right of the 
people to rule, and state rights meant the right of a state, in the 
language of the Kentucky resolutions, " to judge of infractions of the 
federal compact, and of the mode and measure of redress." But the 
gentleman refused to fight under this banner, and he now denounces it 
as emblematic of treason, civil war, bloodshed, strife, and all the 
horrors known to man. I hope he will not get out of temper if we tell 
him that some of us think differently, and that we mean to enjoy our 
opinions. 

The gentleman says the Union Democratic Convention of Mississippi 
appointed "seven delegates to the Baltimore Convention." That "the 
Union men of the South hold the presidential election in the palms of 
their hands." They demand thus and so, and if the convention does 
not comply with these demands, " it had better never assemble." 

Wake snakes and come to judgment — the times are big with the fate of 
nations. " The Union party of the South holds the presidency in- its 
hands," even as the Almighty holds the universe. It stamps its foot, 

and the earth trembles. It speaks, and the sun stands still, as at the 



PUBLIC PRINTING. 289 

bidding of Joshua. Seriously, I hope "the seven men in buckram" 
from Mississippi do not contemplate upsetting the universe, even if the 
Baltimore Convention should refuse some of their demands. 

I have treated these domestic squabbles at greater length than their 
importance may seem to justify. I have treated them fairly, I think, 
and I hope in good temper. I set out with a determination not to be 
provoked by the ungenerous assaults of my colleague, and I have kept 
that resolve steadily in view. I am now done. 

The controversy between my colleagues and myself has not been of 
my seeking. Our constituents did not send us here to fight again the 
campaign battles of Mississippi. And if I had been left alone to pursue 
the inclinations of my own mind, I never should have introduced the 
subject of Mississippi politics on this floor. The subject is foreign to 
the business of legislation on which we have been sent, and ought never 
to have been introduced here. But when my colleagues combined, as I 
thought, to make up a record prejudicial to my party-friends, prejudicial 
" to the truth of history," and calculated to fix on the mind of the 
country and of after ages, a wrong impression as to the principles, 
objects, ends, and aims of my friends, I should have been false to those 
friends, false to the truth of history, false to the reader of these debates 
in after times, if I had not interposed. 

They have made their showing — I have made mine ; and I submit the 
issue to the impartial arbitrament of the country and of posterity, with- 
out one shadow of doubt that justice will be awarded to us all. I ask 
nothing more, and will be content with nothing less. 

This discussion is not suited to my taste. It obstructs the legitimate 
business of legislation, and encumbers the Congressional record with 
matter that has no business there. Its present effect must be, if it has 
any effect, to weaken the Democracy and give strength to the Whigs. 
For all these reasons, and for many others, I am most anxious to get 
clear of it. If the future depends on my action, there will be no recur- 
rence to the subject, here or elsewhere. 



PUBLIC PRINTING. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 13 AND 14, 1852, ON 
THE SUBJECT OF THE PUBLIC PRINTING, AND AGAINST THE ACTION 
OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE IN TAKING IT FROM THE CON- 
TRACTOR AND DIVIDING IT BETWEEN THE "UNION" 
AND THE "REPUBLIC" NEWSPAPERS. 

Mr. Brown said : I do not intend to detain the House by anything 
like an elaborate speech upon the subject of the public printing. In 
the few remarks which I propose to submit, I shall endeavor to confine 
myself as nearly as possible to the subjects directly before us ; nor 
should I have asked the indulgence of the House to say a word but for 
the j\gency which I have taken heretofore in this matter. When I 
heard that the Committee on Public Printing had done more than, by 
the explanation of the honorable chairman, I am now induced to think 
19 



290 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

they intended to do, I thought they had exceeded the authority given 
them by law, and that they had done that which this House ought not 
to sanction by its silence, much less by its express assent. With the 
explanation -which the honorable chairman has given, I am satisfied the 
committee have intended to confine themselves to the letter of the law; 
but I am just as well satisfied that their action will lead to an abuse of 
the law. The Committee on Public Printing have a right, according to 
one construction of the statute of 1846, to take so much of the public 
printing from the present employee as he fails or refuses to execute. 
Under this authority we now learn from the chairman, that they propose 
to take from the public printer — what ? The work which he has refused 
or failed to execute, and this alone ? No, sir ; for in the progress of 
his remarks the honorable chairman tells you that they have in their 
possession now a considerable quantity of work, which has never yet 
been submitted to the public printer. What brought the minds of the 
committee to the conclusion, that the printer would either fail or refuse 
to execute the work, when it had never been in his hands ? Was it not 
straining a conclusion to determine that he had failed to execute, and 
would not execute, work which they had never intrusted to his care, and 
never asked him to execute ? The honorable chairman of the committee 
says that the public printer has failed to execute some of the work here- 
tofore intrusted to his care. But does the conclusion necessarily follow, 
that he will continue to fail ; or that, having failed in one kind of print- 
ing, he would fail in all others ? 

Was it ever expected that the public printer could execute the print- 
ing of this House instantly upon its delivery to him ? Has .there been 
any extraordinary delay in the delivery of this work ? According to 
my recollection, the public printing is about as forward, about as near 
to completion, as it usually is at this season of the year. We have the 
first part of the President's message, bound and laid upon our tables, 
one copy for each member ; and what matters it whetiier the extra 
copies shall be printed this month, the next month, or three months 
hence ? When was the last part of the President's message and accom- 
panying documents printed during the long session of the last Congress ? 
According to my recollection, we were getting along towards the dog- 
days before it was laid upon our tables. Was the then venerable and 
highly-respected public printer [Mr. Ritchie] hauled over the coals for 
a failure to perform his duty ? Was Mr. Ritchie — against whom I have 
no word of complaint to utter here — held up to the country as a defaulter 
in the discharge of his duties ? Ah ! some gentleman answers, in a low 
tone. Yes. It is well the tone is low. No gentleman ought to answer 
yes, in a loud voice. The House knows what was the action taken upon 
that subject two years ago. At the close of the session of 1850, there 
was found to be, in one House of Congress, a large majority not only 
indisposed to call Mr. Ritchie to an account for any failure to comply 
•with his contract, but actually disposed and determined to give him some 
sixty or seventy thousand dollars of the public money as extra compen- 
sation. Mr. Ritchie was paid every dollar that he claimed under his 
contract, and his friends were anxious to give him a great deal more. I 
never understood that he did the work any better, or any more rapidly 
than the contract called for ; and yet there was a large party in this 
House ready to vote him sixty thousand dollars, or more, over and above 



PUBLIC PRINTING. 291 

■what the contract called for ; and it was only, according to my recollec- 
tion, by parliamentary manoeuvring that the thing was prevented. You 
had two or three committees of conference upon the subject, and the 
subject was pressed upon our attention as no other subject was ever 
pressed upon us. And let me remind certain gentlemen, who are en- 
forcing a very rigid observance of the law against Mr. Hamilton, that 
the journals show them to have been more than liberal towards Mr. 
Ritchie. Now, sir, I desire to know why it is, in this land of laws, in 
this land of equality, and before this Democratic House of Representa- 
tives, this kind of distinction is made between one employee and another? 
I know nothing of Mr. Boyd Hamilton ; I have never seen him. If I 
were to meet him to-day, I should not know him from any other man in 
Christendom. I care not one single solitary farthing about him, but I 
do care for justice. I will not willingly make myself a party to a 
transaction so unjust as this. I will not say to one man, who wields a 
powerful party press. We will pay you the full amount of the bond, wink 
at your short-comings, and pay you sixty thousand dollars extra ; and 
then to another, who has no press, no power, no influence. We will crush 
you, because you have not lived up to the very letter of the law. 

Mr. Gorman. I want the gentleman distinctly to avow whether he 
charges that as a motive operating upon the committee? 

Mr. Brown. Not at all. 

Mr. Gorman. Your words do. 

Mr. Brown. I disavow any personal application; but this I will say: 
If the House of Representatives shall perpetrate such an act of gross 
injustice, it will merit, and will assuredly receive, the reprobation of 
every just man in the nation. We hear continually that the contract 
system has proved a failure. I do not think so. The contract system 
has had no fair trial. There has been, what seemed to me, a determi- 
nation from the beginning to bring this system into disrepute — never to 
give it fair play. Powerful parties, holding the most influential positions, 
have engaged in this work. The system has operated against their 
interest, and they have labored to break it down. Its triumph is not 
complete, but it has not failed. Let us see how the system has worked 
so far. Y'our first contractors were Wendell and Van Benthuysen. 
Did they execute their contract ? I understand they did. I am forced 
to that conclusion because there has been no suit entered upon their 
bond for a failure to execute their contract. Thus far the system worked 
well — at least it did not fail. You received the work and paid for it ; 
and if it was not well done, it was because you did not require it to be 
well done. During the last Congress, the then venerable editor of the 
Union (Mr. Ritchie) had the contract. Did he execute it ? I under- 
stand he did. It is my understanding that he executed it to the satis- 
faction of the Committee on Printing, and the satisfaction of Congress. 
I so understand, because no suit has been instituted upon his bond for a 
failure to execute the contract. You again received the work and paid 
for it, and we shall presently see that certain gentlemen proposed to do 
a great deal more. Surely there could have been no failure, when you 
not only received the work and paid for it, but wanted to give large 
extra compensation. Then Mr. A. Boyd Hamilton has the contract for 
this session. The only specifications, according to my present recollec- 
tion, which the honorable chairman makes against him is, that a portion 



292 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

of the paper is some twelve pounds in the ream lighter than the contract 
requires. This I find Mr. Hamilton accounts for in the printed paper 
lying upon our tables. He says, that for a brief season during the past 
winter, on account of the closing of navigation, he was unable to get a 
better article of paper. The cold weather having suspended steamboat 
and railroad operations, he could not procure transportation. 

Mr. Stanton, of Kentucky. I wish to make a statement, and it is 
this : I understand from the chairman of the Senate committee, or rather 
the late chairman of the Senate committee, that he has rejected nearly 
all the work sent to the Senate by the printer, and rejected it not solely 
for the reason that the paper was of an inferior article, but because the 
whole committee concurred in the idea that a great fraud had been prac- 
tised upon the government if this paper should be received as the quality 
of paper which he has now furnished, it being one-fifth less in value, 
than what he was required to furnish. 

But there is another defect in the paper, to which the chairman of the 
House committee, and of the Senate committee, I understand, objected ; 
and it is this : that the sheets of paper upon which the printing is done, 
are too small ; that they have too little margin ; that when the pages 
are folded together, and the edges clipped or cut, it leaves too little 
margin, and that in the books in which plates are to be placed, the plates 
are frequently disfigured and destroyed in consequence of the smallness 
of the sheets. 

Nor is this all. The printing which has been sent to us, is so imper- 
fect in consequence of defects in the manner in which the presswork is 
done, and defects in the quality of the ink that is used, that there are 
not half a dozen sheets in any one book that we have examined, that are 
perfect. They are full from the top line to the bottom of the page, with 
what printers call technically "monks" and "friars," that is, here a 
white place, and here a black blotch. So that the work, in every view in 
which it can be regarded, is inferior to what was agreed for under the 
contract. 

Mr. Florence. Did the gentleman submit any of this work to the 
House ? I understood the chairman of the Committee on Printing [Mr. 
Gorman] to say that there had been no documents except the President's 
message and accompanying documents, given to the public printer. His 
complaint was, that there had been no work done ; but now the gentle- 
man from Kentucky, a member of the Committee on Printing, rises in 
his place, and says that these have been condemned. Where are they ? 

Mr. Polk. I will ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania, if there are 
not thirty or forty executive documents that have been furnished to the 
printer during the last three months, and that have not been printed 
yet? 

Mr. Florence. I do not know anything at all about that, for I am 
not a member of the Committee on Printing. I attend to the business 
of the committee to which I belong, and cannot answer the gentleman's 
question. 

Mr. Polk, Then I say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania that he 
ought not to talk about things he knows nothing about. 

Mr. Florence. I rose for the purpose of being informed ; and if the 
gentleman had had his ears open, he would have heard my question, and 
would not have made the remark he did. 



PUBLIC PRINTING. 293 

Mr. Polk. I am sorry I did not hear the gentleman ; but it is my 
misfortune, if my ears are not as long as his. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Gorman. The gentleman from Pennsylvania misunderstood me, 
if he understood me as saying that no document but the President's 
message had gone into the hands of the printer, A great many docu- 
ments have gone into his hands, but we have never seen anything of 
them since ; when they get there, it is the last of them. A part of the 
President's message has, however, come to us, and it is to that that the gen- 
tleman from Kentucky alludes. If you look over the pages, you will find 
the "monks" and "friars," or, as I should call them, blotches of white 
and then blotches of black. They are really so insufferably bad that 
we could not receive them. I hope the gentleman from Pennsylvania is 
satisfied. I will produce a copy, and hand it to him. 

Mr. Brown (resuming). I was proceeding to inquire, when I was 
interrupted, whether it was true that the contract system had been fairly 
tried, and had proved a failure ? I had shown that there was no evi- 
dence of its failure up to the commencement of this session of Congress, 
and I had stated that I believed there had been combinations to break 
it down. If it has failed, or shall hereafter fail, in the hands of Mr. 
Hamilton, is that conclusive that the system is wrong, and ought to be 
abandoned? That it must fail in his hands, under the policy that the 
committee propose to pursue towards him, is to my mind the most evi- 
dent proposition on earth. If the committee suspends a job when it is 
half completed, takes other jobs from him entirely, and makes large 
deductions from time to time on the work which he has executed, who 
does not see that the man's credit must be broken down ? If he was 
worth a quarter of a million of dollars, he could not execute the contract 
under such a policy as this. 

But I do not mean to dwell upon this branch of the subject. I have 
said that, in my judgment, the system has not proved a failure. If it 
has failed at all at any time, or in any man's hands, it is because you 
have not given it a fair trial. 

Mr. Freeman (interrupting). I did not understand the chairman of 
the committee to say that the contract had been abrogated, but only 
that they should employ others to carry out such parts of the contract 
as the contractor has failed to carry out. I do not understand that this 
is an attack upon the contract system, but only upon the manner in 
which this party has acted under his contract. Is not that the fact ? 

Mr. Gorman. It is. 

Mr. Brown. If the committee take the printing from this man and 
hand it over to others, or if they refuse to deliver it over to him, Avhat 
is it but an abandonment of the contract ? Is not that a breaking up of 
the contract? Does not every man see that the result of this action on 
the part of the committee must be that the whole of the House printing 
will go to Donelson & Armstrong, and the whole of the Senate printing 
to Gideon & Co. ? Mr. Boyd Hamilton will be left at the end of three 
weeks from to-day with not a penny's worth of work on hand. It is 
useless to say what the committee mean to do, or what is meant by this 
proceeding. The question is, what does their action inevitably lead to ? 
If the work is taken from Hamilton by the committee, and their action 
is sanctioned by the House, there is an end of his contract; and with i: 



294 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

we all see that the whole contract system will end. It cannot be other- 
wise. 

The committee has notified us that they have ceased to send the work 
to Hamilton, and have made arrangements with other parties to do it. 
Is it not ridiculous, then, to say that they have not abrogated the con- 
tract ? They have, to all intents and purposes, abrogated one contract 
and made another. It is stultifying ourselves to pretend that it is 
otherwise. 

My reason for introducing a resolution in reference to this subject 
was this — and I had no other purpose to subserve — I wanted to arrest 
what I thought a dangerous proceeding. I knew the committee were 
acting without having made a report to the House. I did not pause to 
inquire whether they had authority to do all that they proposed. I 
looked only to the effect which their action Avas certain to produce. Mr. 
Hamilton says he has made an outlay of $50,000 in preparing himself 
to execute the printing of Congress. It is proposed summarily to take 
the contract from him — and by whom and in what manner, pray ? Not 
by Congress — not by a committee of Congress, but by three members 
of the House and one member of the Senate; for, bear you in mind, this 
is not the act of a full committee. And this fragment of a committee 
are doing this without consulting Congress, and without reporting its 
proceedings. Now, let Congress sanction this act of the committee, 
and think you, sir, that this man will not come here at the next Con- 
gress, and ask indemnity for his losses on this outlay ? No man will 
question that. And what do you suppose he will prove ? If he is half 
as smart in making proof as others have been, he will prove that he was 
executing the work as well as it had ever been done ; that he was 
deliverino- it as fast as it had ever been delivered ; that his contract was 
rudely and summarily snatched from him, his business broken up, his 
credit destroyed, and himself ruined. And instead of your getting the 
penalty of the bonds, he will present a claim for some $100,000 or more 
against you. Then, if a committee -is appointed, as there will be, to 
investigate the subject, what evidence will there be on the record to show 
that you were justified in this proceeding? Take the contract from Mr. 
Hamilton, under these circumstances, if you Avill ; but I ask you to leave 
upon the record the evidence which shall justify your action to those 
who are to come after you, and who will be charged with an investiga- 
tion of Hamilton's claims. Do not go out of this contract and leave no 
trace behind to mark your exit. Before you sanction the acts of this 
committee, demand a report, a full report, one that will justify you 
before another Congress in dismissing Hamilton from his contract — for 
rest assured he will present his claim from year to year, and send it 
down to his children after him, from generation to generation. It will 
be presented time and again, until, finally. Congress will be brought to 
pass it. It is this result against which I now raise my warning voice. 

If there is anything to justify this step on the part of Congress, let 
the committee report it. Let the House take the responsibility. Let 
us know where we stand. Let those who are to come after us have 
something with which to meet Mr. Hamilton, when he comes here by 
himself, or through his attorney or successors, to make a demand for 
damages on account of the breaking up of his contract. 

We are told day after day in the newspapers and elsewhere, that the 



PUBLIC PRINTING. 295 

contract system has failed, and that Congress ought to abandon it. I 
am no friend of the system. I am not its friend or its apologist. But 
it has not failed. Its success has been AYonderful, considering the 
amount of opposition it has encountered. Does it not strike us all as 
being rather remarkable, that a member can take up one of these printed 
documents on his desk, direct it to some one in some remote corner of 
California or Oregon, put his frank upon it, call a page and send it to the 
post-oflSce of the House, and that it should then be taken up and carried 
from one point to another, and that too. by contract, until finally it 
reaches its far oif destination, and yet that this document thus borne 
from one part of the continent to another by contract, cannot be printed 
here, under the eye of Congress, by contract ? Your army and navy 
can be supplied by contract; your troops on the distant frontier of 
Texas, California, and Oregon, can be furnished with supplies by con- 
tract; and yet you cannot print a book by contract. If these manu- 
scripts belonged to a private individual, could he not get them printed 
by contract ? — and would he not do it ? Why is it, then, that we cannot 
do the same thing ? I do not profess to know, but I will tell you what 
I think may be the cause. I do not say why it is we have failed, but I 
will tell you what I think has interfered with our success. There are 
party editors in the city of Washington — Whigs as well as Democrats — 
and there may be such a thing as this going on : 

" If you'll tickle me, I'll tickle you." 

If a member will vote large supplies to a party editor, and thus tickle 
him — and it applies not more to one party than the other — why, then, 
the editor speaks well of the member to his constituents, and thus tickles 
him in return ; but before an excuse can be given for voting these sup- 
plies, the contract system must be broken up. Besides, it may be pos- 
sible that party men, after all, care more for the success of party editors 
than for the success of a system like this. And they may strive to 
bring the system into discredit and to destroy it in public favor, in order 
that party editors may come up and be elected public printers, or have 
contracts given to them, out of which they may realize large sums of 
money. I say these things may be. I do not say they are so. But 
these are reflections which force themselves on my mind. And when I 
can find no good reason why the contract system is failing, or is likely 
to fail — no reason why it is cried down — my mind dwells here ; and I 
inquire of myself, whether it is not possible, that at the bottom of all 
the difiiculty in executing this contract system, there do not lie some 
hidden and secret causes like these ? If these be the causes of failure, 
let them be removed. Let us fling defiance in the teeth of those who 
would use the national treasury to purchase favor. Let members stand 
on their merits, and editors, like other men, work for what they get, and 
the contract system will triumph. 

I do not say the contract system is the best; I only say it has not 
had a fair trial, and we have no reason to conclude that it has failed. 
If I had my own way, or if my suggestions are worth anything to the 
House, I would say, that above all other modes, I should prefer to have 
the public printer elected, and that it should be required of hita, by law, 
that he should have no connection with any party press. Whig or Demo- 
cratic, during his service ; but that he should be what his vocation indi- 



296 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

cated him to be — the public printer, and nothing else. If I had my 
own way, I should prefer to have the work executed by a public printer, 
who should be well paid. But of all the schemes that I have ever seen or 
heard of, this last one of the Committee on Printing, is to me the most 
objectionable — objectionable in many points of view. I do not like these 
combinations between Whigs and Democrats. I do not say there has 
been a combination or coalition for had purposes^ because I will not 
charge my honorable friend from Indiana [Mr. Gorman] with entering 
into combinations ; but it will strike the mind of this country as a coali- 
tion ; and, however well intended, its effects upon the Democratic party 
must be most disastrous. Talk about the Massachusetts coalition ! 
Why, sir, the honorable chairman of the committee ought to have 
retained the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Rantoul], to defend 
this business. He is a capital defender of coalitions, as he has given us 
good reason to know. [Laughter.] 

This whole thing looks to me, and I fear it will strike the country, as 
very much like a combination or coalition between the Whigs and Demo- 
crats, or rather between the organs of the two parties, to control the 
government printing, keep the game in their own hands, and pocket the 
profits. I do not say that it is so, but it occurs to me that it looks that 
way, and that the country will so regard it. 

Mr. Gorman. I want to put a friendly question to the gentleman 
from Mississippi. I ask that gentleman whether the present coalition 
suits him ? 

Mr. Brown. It does not. 

Mr. Gorman. I understand it does not. Would the Southern Press 
suit him ? 

Mr. Brown. It would not. 

Mr. Gorman. I am inclined to come to the same conclusion in rela- 
tion to my friend from Mississippi that he does in relation to myself. 
He suspects me of forming a coalition with the organs of the Whig and 
Democratic parties. I suspect him o£ doing precisely the same thing 
with the Southern Press. He suspects me, therefore, of exactly what I 
suspect him ; so, if he kills my dog, I will kill his cat in the same way. 
[Laughter.] 

Mr. Brown. Let me say to my friend from Indiana, that he was 
never more mistaken. I have at no time sought, directly nor indirectly, 
to give any part of the public printing to the Southern Press. And, 
what is more, if it were left to me to direct the whole subject, I would 
not give one dollar of it to any party editor. 

Mr. Venable. Wouldn't you give it to the National Era? 
[Laughter.] 

Mr. Brown. About as soon as to some others. 

Mr. Polk. I ask the gentleman if he would not vote to give it to the 
Southern Press ? 

Mr. Brown. No, sir. I have already stated, and I believe it to be 
true, that it is wrong in principle to give the public patronage to party 
editors at all. It destroys that independence and boldness which should 
belong alike to editors and representatives; it begets a sort of para- 
lyzing sympathy between the recipient of a favor and the giver of it, 
which stands palpably in the way of a fair, upright, equitable, and honest 
administration of political justice. 



PUBLIC PRINTING. 297 

Mr. Rantoul. The suggestion which the gentleman from Mississippi 
[Mr. Brown] has thrown out, that I might be employed to defend this 
coalition, places me in a rather unpleasant situation; and, therefore, I 
beg leave to say, in advance, that I shall decline entirely to undertake 
any such task upon any conditions whatever, A coalition which is 
founded in principle, I can defend ; but one which looks entirely to the 
division of the spoils, seems to me to be entirely indefensible. [Renewed 
laughter.] 

Mr. Brown. Well, I have only said that if a coalition should be 
completed, better counsel could not be found to defend it. 

Mr. Gorman. I congratulate the gentleman upon his new coalition. 

Mr. Brown. If my friend, the chairman of the Committee on Print- 
ing, will look over the vote of yesterday upon this subject, he will find 
some reason to congratulate himself upon another coalition. My recol- 
lection is, that he was found in very strange company on that occasion. 
If he will but turn to his friend over the way from New York [Mr. 
Haven], he will find in him a coadjutor with whom he struck hands in 
making this bargain. 

Mr. Gorman, I was congratulating the gentleman upon his coalition 
with the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Rantoul]. 

Mr. Brown. Upon the great issues which unite us as Democrats, we 
work together. And on these issues, I believe there is not a more trust- 
worthjr member of the party on this floor than the honorable gentleman 
from Massachusetts [Mr. Rantoul]. Those are the issues upon which 
the gentleman from Massachusetts and myself unite. Upon other issues, 
there is no bond of sympathy between us. The bond which unites us is 
political only ; and the points of affinity are those which unite the gentle- 
man from Indiana and myself, and indeed all Democrats, But my friend 
from Indiana [Mr, Gorman], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Haven], seem to be united, and to have formed a coalition to obtain the 
spoils. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Speaker, although I listened with the most profound attention, 
as I always do, to the remarks of my friend from Indiana [Mr. Gorman], 
I am at a loss to know why it became necessary to employ two party 
organs to aid in the public printing ? I cannot understand why some- 
body else could not have done it just as well. There were other printing 
establishments here. There was the Towers's establishment. There was 
Mr. Rives's establishment ; and there were others. But I understand 
the committee voted down all these establishments ; they even voted 
down Donelson & Armstrong, as my friend [Mr. Gorman] says. And 
in order to secure to them a part of the work the right hand of fellow- 
ship was extended by him to his Whig co-laborers, they agreeing to 
divide it between the two great party organs, the Union and the Republic. 
I ask my friend [Mr. Gorman] if he did not vote against Rives, and 
against Towers, and against others. 

Mr. Gorman. I did. 

Mr. Brown. Exactly ; and other members of the committee voted 
against Donelson & Armstrong, and in this way no conclusion was arrived 
at, until at last the two Whigs on the committee obtained their own 
terms, and got half the job for the Republic. It seems to me that if 
my friend from Indiana [Mr. Gorman], and my friend from Kentucky 
[Mr. Stanton], who was a member of that committee, had gone with the 



298 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

other members of the committee for Mr. Rives, there would have been 
no diflSculty. 

Mr. Orr. Will my friend from Mississippi yield for a motion to 
adjourn? 

Mr. Brown. I will yield for that purpose. 

Mr. Orr. I move, then, that the House do now adjourn. 

The motion was put and agreed to ; and 

The House adjourned till twelve o'clock to-morrow. 



Wednesday, April lith, 1852. 

Mr. Brown continued : Before I enter upon the subject which was 
under consideration at the time of adjournment yesterday, I desire to 
correct an impression which I ascertain to have made a lodgement upon 
the minds of some gentlemen, whose opinion I prize very highly. And 
that is, that I have been actuated in my course by some feeling of per- 
sonal hostility to the parties engaged by the committee to execute the 
public printing. I desire to say, once for all, that I distinctly disavow 
any such feeling. My personal relations with all the gentlemen (or 
with all of them that I know), are of a friendly character, and I know 
of no reason why they should not so continue. I owe them no thanks 
for past favors, and no grudge for past injuries. Occupying such a 
position, I can deal out to each one, and to all of them, equal and exact 
justice. 

It seems to me, that in the action of the committee upon this subject 
of printing, there has been no bona fide eifort to employ any one to 
execute the work, except Donelson & Armstrong. With the majority 
of the committee on the part of the House of Representatives, this ap- 
pears clearly to have been the case. It seems that no other establish- 
ment was thought of, in connection with this printing, or was treated as 
worthy to receive it, except the Union establishment. With the majority, 
it was Donelson & Armstrong at the beginning — it was Donelson & 
Armstrong through its whole progress — it was Donelson & Armstrong 
at the conclusion. 

Mr. Stanton of Kentucky (interrupting). Will the gentleman from 
Mississippi allow me to say a word ? 

Mr. Brown. If I am at all mistaken, I want to be corrected — 

Mr. Stanton. The remark the gentleman has just made does not 
apply to me. I attempted, at an early part of this struggle, to get this 
work divided out to Donelson & Armstrong and John T. Towers, and 
offered a resolution to that effect. I did so for this reason : because 
there was a necessity, at the time, of doing something. I thought those 
gentlemen were prepared to do the work, and I proposed to the com- 
mittee to give to them such work as fhe public printer could not, or 
would not, do. 

Mr. Brown. Still I find, from the explanation of my friend from 
Kentucky [Mr. Stanton], that he insisted upon having Donelson & 
Armstrong in the contract somewhere. Now, sir, while these gentlemen 
[Messrs. Stanton and Gorman] were indulging their predilections for 
their friends, it seems they never thought of indulging other gentlemen 
to the same extent. They, it seems, had their likes for Donelson k 
Armstrong, and their dislikes for other printers and editors, and it was 



PUBLIC PRINTING. 299 

all I'ight that they should indulge them. But if other people indulge 
their likes and dislikes, then these gentlemen think it is all wrong. 
They think it very odd that other gentlemen should refuse to give up 
their opposition to Donelson & Armstrong; but they seem at no time to 
have been willing to yield their position in favor of these gentlemen. 
These facts being true, I say there does not seem to have been a lona 
fide single purpose of procuring the public work to be done in the speedi- 
est manner, and by those who would do it the cheapest and best. But 
there seems to have been but one purpose, running throughout the whole 
proceedings, from the beginning to the end, and that was to favor the 
printing establishment of Donelson & Armstrong. That I object to. 
I do not object to those particular individuals. What I object to is this : 
that the committee did not go to work in good faith to obtain the print- 
ing upon the best terms, but that they made the public interest secondary / 
to the private interest of the Union establishment. Their position appears 
to have been, that unless Donelson & Armstrong could be included in 
the contract, they would make no contract. This, in my judgment, was 
wrong. Why not contract with other parties, if they would do the work 
as speedily and as cheaply ? Why did the committee, from the beginning 
to the end, insist, without special reference to the speedy completion of 
the work, that this particular establishment should be included in what- 
ever contract was made ? It was the duty of the committee to have 
given the contractor every reasonable indulgence, and if he failed or 
refused to do the work, to have reported that failure to Congress ; and 
if they put the woi'k in other hands they ought to have employed the 
man who would do it the quickest, cheapest, and best. 

The honorable gentleman, the chairman of that committee [Mr. Gor- 
man], in the course of a colloquy yesterday, endeavored to impress upon 
the minds of this House, and so far as his printed speech could do it, 
upon the minds of the country, that there was something like an under- 
standing between gentlemen entertaining extreme views ; or, in other 
words, between what is called the Southern ultras and Northern Free- 
Soilers. An intimation was more than once made in the progress of 
the debate that there was something like a coalition between these 
extremes, and that by agreement they were acting in concert upon this 
question. No such thing is true of me. I repudiate any such insinua- 
tion, come from what quarter it may. I act here solely and alone, upon 
my own responsibility, never thinking, never inquiring, and never caring 
whether any other man North or South is or is not acting with me. 

The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Gorman] intimates that he will 
expose these understandings. For me, he is quite at liberty to begin. 
But before he puts my friends or myself on trial, I would advise him to 
try his hand on his associate, the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Stan- 
ton]. He is a capital subject to practise on. I shall expect to hear 
him say, " Richard Stanton, slaveholder and pro-slavery Democratic 
representative from the slaveholding state of Kentucky, stand up and 
answer to this House, by what warrant you were found in an unholy 
coalition with Truman Smith, Free-Soiler and Abolition Whig Senator 
from Connecticut, voting to divide the public printing between the Union 
and the Republic ?" It would be an interesting trial, and I should 
watch its progress with great interest. Let the gentleman settle accounts 
like this between his colleagues on the committee before he charges 



300 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

coalition upon others. It seems there is no account taken of coalition- 
ists like theirs. But if persons occupying such extreme positions as the 
gentleman from Massachusetts and myself are found opposing a bargain 
made by others holding quite as extreme positions as we do, we hear a 
great outcry about coalition ! coalition ! ! If the bargain was made by a 
coalition, it may be opposed in the same way. If there was nothing 
wrong in the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Stanton] and Truman 
Smith acting together in making the bargain, there can be nothing 
wrong in the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Rantoul] and myself 
acting together in opposing it. If I am found acting with gentlemen 
entertaining extreme views against the contract, it will be found that it 
was made by gentlemen holding opinions just as extreme. 

Mr. Stanton of Kentucky (interrupting). If the gentleman from 
Mississippi will allow me, I will tell him the result. We succeeded in 
bringing over a Connecticut Whig Senator and Abolitionist to the sup- 
port of a compromise press. 

Mr. Brown. Yes, sir ; and when he came over he brought with him 
a Whig paper which has heaped more abuse upon the Democratic ma- 
jority of this House than all the presses from Maine to Louisiana. Its 
columns teem from day to day with abuse of members of this House 
whose Democracy has never been questioned — Northern men and 
Southern men. When you talk about your Free-Soil ally from the 
North going for a compromise press, let me remind you, that he carried 
you over to the Whig press, and that one, the most vindictive of them 
all. The country will inquire how this was brought about ; how, with 
an overwhelming Democratic majority in this House, and an equally 
effective Democratic majority in the Senate, you have not been able to 
choose a Democratic printer ? Why it was that the Republic was fastened 
upon us ? Why has this coalition been formed ? These are the ques- 
tions that will be asked. And the answer will be, that Donelson & 
Armstrong might be provided for. That is the whole secret of the 
matter — that is the nest in which the coalition was hatched. 

Mr. Polk (interrupting). Will the gentleman from Mississippi allow 
me to propound a question to him ? 
Mr. Brown. Simply a question. 

Mr. Polk. Will you vote to elect the compromise Union press to be 
public printer ? 

Mr. Brown. I will not vote to elect any newspaper editor public 
printer. I said so yesterday. 

Mr. King. I rise to a question of order. 

Mr. Polk. I see the coalition is now formed. The gentleman from 
New York [Mr. King], a Free-Soiler, says I am out of order. [Laughter.] 
Mr. Brown. I beg not to be interrupted by a side-bar colloquy. 
The Speaker. The Chair understood the gentleman from Mississippi 
to yield the floor to the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Polk]. 

Mr. Brown. I did for a question, but not for a colloquy. Now, let 
us see, sir, to what strange reasons gentlemen of this committee are 
driven in justification of their course. The honorable gentleman who 
sits before me [Mr. Haven], says that he objected to Mr. Rives's doing 
this work. He already had a large and important job from the govern- 
ment. How many important and profitable jobs has the Republic under 
the government ? Who does not know that the Republic newspaper is 



PUBLIC TRINTING. 301 

fattened and made sleek by the pap it receives from the Executive 
departments? All this the gentleman takes no account of. It was his 
sow that was drinking the swill, and he never thought it worth his while 
to charge it. 

If this printing had to be divided out, why was not more justice 
observed in the division ? Why should the committee have confined 
themselves exclusively to the Union and Republic ? Why take two 
newspapers, occupying extreme positions, and turn all others out ? 
Why not take in the "old fogies" of the Intelligencer? Why were 
they, like Nebuchadnezzar, turned out to grass ? I do not see any 
reason why they should not have had a share. They are for the com- 
promise. Was it because they had not been peculiarly abusive of the 
Democratic party, and of the Democratic members of this House ? I 
must confess, sir, if I had to elect between Donelson & Armstrong and 
the Intelligencer, on the one hand, and Donelson & Armstrong and 
the Republic, on the other, I would take the Intelligencer by large odds. 

I ask the attention of gentlemen to what I am about to say. What 
are we to understand by this procedure ? My friend from Indiana [Mr. 
Gorman], on yesterday, when he came to allude to the Southern Press, 
to which he evidently thought I was much attached, and in whose ser- 
vice I was laboring (and in all of which he was very much mistaken), 
became almost frantic. His manner was excited, and he became a little 
denunciatory for a gentleman of his amiable temper. [Laughter.] Why 
was this? Why was it. thought necessary thus to denounce the Southern 
Press. That paper, as is well known, reflects the sentiments of a large 
number of the Southern Democrats. Are we to understand, in its exclu- 
sion, and the bitter denunciations which follow the mention of its name, 
that such portion of the Democracy as sympathize in the sentiments 
uttered through its columns, are also to be proscribed, excluded, and 
denounced ? Is this what we are to understand ? And if we are, Avhere 
is this proscription to stop ? If Southern Democrats, who sympathize 
with the sentiments uttered through the columns of the Southern Press, 
are to be proscribed before the election, what is to be their position after 
the election ? These are matters, sir, to be reflected upon. 

Now, I am free to say to you, Mr. Speaker, to the House, and to the 
country, that my vote and my course in the presidential canvass, are not 
to be controlled by your action upon this subject. But I iim not author- 
ized to say that your action may not control the votes of hundreds and 
thousands of others in the South. If you shall indicate to them, that 
because certain newspapers and gentlemen have defended what they 
believe to be the rights of the Southern States, they are therefore to be 
proscribed, they will probably feel it to be due to their own dignity and 
self-respect to proscribe you in return. Lightly as gentlemen may think 
of it, this view of the subject may be found worthy of consideration. 
There are in the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi alone, one 
hundred thousand State-Rights men. Proscribe them, proscribe the 
organ that more nearly than any other in this city reflects tlieir views, 
and do it because of those views, and I tell you, I will not be account- 
able for the manner in which they will dispose of their votes. They may 
not ask favors at your hands for themselves or for any one else, but they 
may feel it to be due to their own relf-respect to resent an insult — to 
resent proscription. I will not undertake to say what they will do. I 



302 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

am not authorized, as I have said before, to state what their future action 
will be; but I do feel authorized, in a friendly way, to say that you 
should be cautious how you act. You may endanger the success of your 
presidential candidate. You may endanger a matter infinitely more 
important to you than the public printing. You may endanger the 
patronage of the President, and the distribution of the $50,000,000. 
A little caution, and a little good temper, properly exercised, and a 
slight sprinkle of justice and common sense, may save a deal of trouble 
by and by. It is one thing to give up that which is one's due voluntarily, 
and it is another thing to have it snatched away, and that in so rude a 
manner as to give offence. I repeat again that I do not want any part 
of this printing for any friend of mine on earth. But I should not like 
to be told that certain parties could not have it because they were my 
friends. And I think it likely this may be the feeling of a great many 
southern people. 

I do not care, sir, to pursue this discussion. I have said about all that 
I care to say, and if I go farther, I may say that which had better be 
left unsaid. The concluding portion of my remarks, I throw out only 
as a friendly warning to my political brethren here. They can receive 
them in a friendly spirit or not. I want it to be understood, and it is all 
I have to say, that when proscription commences for opinion's sake, 
there can be proscription upon one side as well as upon the other. I 
offer the following resolution. It is not my own, and does not fully 
meet my approbation. A friend has handed it- to me, with a request 
that I should offer it. I do so in compliance with his request: — 

" Resolved, That the report of the Committee on Printing be referred to the Com- 
mittee on the Judiciary, with instructions to report upon the whole subject, and to 
recommend for the adoption of Congress such a system for the execution of the public 
printing as they may deem most expedient, and that they especially take into con- 
sideration the plan for a printing bureau, for the execution of the work under the 
supervision of a government officer." 

Mr. Brown. The Judiciary Committee had been selected, because in 
taking this contract, if it must be taken, out of the hands of Hamilton, 
and disposing of it otherwise, legal questions must necessarily arise, 
which it will be better to have passed upon by the Judiciary Committee 
than any other. I have done, sir. 

At a later period in the debate, Mr. Nabers and Mr. Polk both made 
inquiries of Mr. Brown as to how fjir he agreed with Mr. Rantoul, and 
what he meant by old issues. When Mr. B. was about to respond, he 
was decided to be out of order. 

Mr. Brown. It is in order to ask questions, but out of order to an- 
swer them. 

[Mr. Brown requests the reporter to say, that if he had been allowed 
to respond to Mr. Nabers and Mr. Polk, he would have said: The time 
was when the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Rantoul) was accepted 
as a sound Democrat. President Polk appointed him United States 
District Attorney for Massachusetts, and thus endorsed him to me and 
to the nation. He was a Democrat then on the old issues. If he has 
changed his opinions on these issues, I have yet to learn it ; and if he 
has not, he is a Democrat on these issues yet. By old issues, I mean 
those that divided the two parties in the days of Jackson, Van Buren, 
and Polk. Such, for example, as the Bank, Tariff, Distribution, and the 



PUBLIC PRINTING. 303 

Sub-Treasui-y. If the bank charter, or a protective tariff, distribution, 
■wasteful appropriations, or the repeal of the sub-treasury, any one or all 
of them shall be proposed, I will not reject the aid of the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Free-Soiler though he be) in upholding the Democratic 
side of these questions. These were the issues — the old issues — when 
the honored brother of the gentleman from Tennessee appointed Robert 
Rantoul district attorney. On these he was sound at that time ; we all 
trusted him then, and if he has not changed his opinions on these issues, 
I know of no reason why we should not trust him now. 

On the new issues — those growing out of the slavery strife and 
the territorial acquisitions, the compromise, &c. — there is no bond of 
sympathy, no affinity between the gentleman from Massachusetts and 
myself. On all these issues, direct and collateral, that gentleman and my- • 
self are as wide apart as the poles. This the gentlemen from Tennessee 
and Mississippi know full well. 

If gentlemen on both sides of the House who are the special friends 
of the compromise are to be trusted, the slavery agitation, and all the 
incidental issues growing out of it, have been settled ; they were all 
compromised ; and it was but the other day that we passed a finality 
resolution, which meant, as I supposed, that there was an end of the 
main issue and all its incidents. Now we have it dug up, resurrected, 
and dragged in here again, and that, too, by its own best friends. I 
hope we shall be done with this business. 

If fidelity to the Democratic party means that I must vote large and 
fat jobs of printing to Donelson & Armstrong, and if I can only sig- 
nalize mj fidelity by voting other large and fat jobs to the Republic, I 
must say to the gentlemen who are croaking " Coalition !" " Coalition !" 
that, in this view of the subject, I am not faithful, and never mean to be. 
I would as soon have the aid of the gentleman from Massachusetts in 
severing the unholy bonds which unite the Union and Republic news- 
papers, as I would in pulling down protection and upholding the inde- 
pendent treasury. When a good work has to be done, I will accept aid 
from any quarter. 

It is a weak invention of the coalitionists to raise this hue and cry. 
And they expect thereby to divert public attention from the fact that 
they have fastened the Union to one teat of the National Treasury, and 
then, by way of quieting the Republic, given it another and a better 
one. Cry coalition as much as you please, the people will inquire by 
whom and for what reason these things were done. 



30i ALBERT G. BROWN. 



HOMESTEADS. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 28, 1852, ON THE HOME- 

STEAD BILL, AND IN VINDICATION OF THE POLICY OF PROVIDING 

HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS ON THE PUBLIC LANDS. 

" Despise not these Squatters." 

The bill to encourage agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and all other branches 
of industry, by granting to every man who is the head of a family, and a citizen 
of the United States, a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres of land out of 

^ the public domain, upon condition of occupancy and cultivation of the same, for 
the period herein specified, being under consideration, in Committee of the Whole 
— Mr. Brown said : — 

Mr. Chairman : — It is my purpose to submit a few remarks on the 
proposition before the committee, and, however tempted by the example 
of Others, I shall endeavor to keep within the lines of legitimate debate 
on the bill and the pending amendments. 

I claim to have been among the earliest, as I have certainly been 
among the most steadfast friends of the wise and humane policy of pro- 
viding homes for the homeless. 

This government is the largest landed proprietor in the world. Its 
acres of untilled soil are numbered by the hundreds of millions. Of the 
area embraced within the limits of the Union, only about one-third is in 
the hands of private individuals. Nearly two-thirds belong to, or are 
subject to the disposition of the federal government. Under the general 
authority to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations re- 
specting the territory and other property of the United States, Congress 
has from time to time disposed of the territory for cash, and on a credit. 
Congress has disposed of the territory for school purposes and for inter- 
nal improvement purposes, giving it to the states, to corporations, and to 
private companies, for these and other purposes. Congress has, from 
time to time, voted bounties to soldiers, to be paid in land ; and these 
bounties have been voted in times of war, as an inducement to volunteer, 
and in time of peace as a naked gratuity. This legislation — these modes 
of disposing of territory — has received the sanction of all the presidents, 
and of every class of politicians. Precedent, I grant you, is the weakest 
of all authority, but so far as it goes, it settles the question of power in 
this case. If Congress can sell the public lands on a credit, or for one 
dollar and a quarter cash, per acre, why may we not sell them for one 
dollar, or for ten cents, or for one cent per acre ? If we can give the 
new states, as we did in 1842, five hundred thousand acres each for 
internal improvement purposes — if, as in the case of every new state, 
the sixteenth section in each township can be given for common-school 
purposes — if, as in the case of my own and most of the new states, we 
can give lands for seats of government, and for colleges and for univer- 
sities — if, as in the case of the Mexican war, and later, in the case of 
all our Indian and other wars, the honorably-discharged soldier can 
have lands given him, is it not idle to dispute the plenary power of the 



HOMESTEADS. 305 

government to dispose of these lands — to give them, if you choose, to 
actual settlers ? 

The government holds the lands of Oregon by the same title — cer- 
tainly by no higher title than it holds the lands in Mississippi, Minne- 
sota, and other states and territories — and it is within the recollection 
of all of us, that during the last Congress we gave lands to the settlers 
in Oregon — to some a whole section ; to some a half section, and to 
some a quarter section. Here is a precedent exactly in point, and it 
covers the whole question of power. 

No one doubts my disposition to construe the powers of this govern- 
ment strictly — to confine it within the sphere of its delegative powers. 
And yet, looking at the unlimited authority given by the Constitution 
to dispose of the territory as property, I am free to confess that my 
mind is not only clear, but it is free from any shadow of doubt as to 
the power.* It is given in express terms, and nothing is left to impli- 
cation. That the power may be abused is certainly true ; and that 
abuses may violate the spirit of the Constitution is just as true. It is 
expected of Congress that it will dispose of the territory judiciously, 
and for the common good. A prodigal and wasteful disposition of it 
would be an abuse of power, and therefore a violation of the spirit of 
the Constitution. 

The abuse, or the apprehended abuse of a power, does not at all 
uifect the question of its existence. Congress, for example, has the 
power to declare war, and to this there is no limit. An unnecessary or 
wanton declaration Avould violate the spirit of the Constitution, but it 
would not affect the question of power. No one can dispute the power 
of Congress to declare war, however much we may deprecate its exer- 
cise in a given case. 

The power to dispose of the public lands is just as clear as the power 
to declare war, and it is quite as unlimited. f I apprehend, therefore, 
that gentlemen are mistaken when they deny the constitutional power 
of Congress to pass this bill. The power is one thing, the propriety of 
its exercise is another, and a very diiferent thing. 

This brings us to consider the expediency of passing this bill. If it 
shall be found promotive of all the essential interests of the government, 

* See art. 4, sec. 3, U. S. Constitution. 

t This proposition may be stated too broadly. General Millson inquired of Mr. 
Brown, at a later period of the debate, whether Congress could give the -whole of the 
public lands to the President of the United States f Mr. Brown answered, " Yes : 
Congress has the poicer. To exercise it would be a monstrous abuse of power, and 
would, therefore, violate the spirit of the Constitution." General ^lillson reminded 
him that the compensation of the President could not be increased during his term 
of service. Mr. Brown admitted, that in this view of the subject, he had stated his 
proposition too broadly. If the gentleman from Virginia had asked him (Mr. B.) if 
the President's compensation could be increased by giving him land, Mr. B. would 
have answered, Ko. But this was rather a question as to the power to receive on 
the part of the executive, than the power to give on the part of the legislature. 

Mr. B. admits that the power of Congress over the territory, as given in the third 
section, article 4, of the Constitution, may be limited (as in the case cited by General 
Millson) by the prohibitory clauses in other parts of the Constitution. But he main- 
tains that there is no such prohilntion in regard to the settlers (»r other citizens, and 
therefore that the power is plenary as to them. It was this class of people that 
Mr. Brown had in his mind's eye Miien he stated his proposition that Congress had 
as unlimited power over the public lands as it had to declare war. And in this view 
of the case he adheres to his first proposition. 
20 



306 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

I take it, there can be no dispute about its expediency. And if it shall 
be found expedient, we shall be excluded from the conclusion that it is 
violative of the spirit of the Constitution. No exercise of a specific grant 
of power can violate the spirit of the Constitution, when it is only car- 
ried to the extent of promoting the general welfare. 

If the bill shall pass in the form in which it was moved by my honor- 
able friend from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson], or if the substitute moved 
by myself shall be preferred, in either case the great essential object 
aimed at by the friends of the homeless will have been attained. Homes 
will have been provided for all. 

I shall presently contrast the relative advantages of the original bill 
and the substitute. But before entering upon this branch of the sub- 
ject, alloAV me to submit a few general remarks on the point as to how 
the general interest of the country is to be promoted by the passage of 
this bill. The field for observation which opens at this point is a large 
one, and I do not propose to occupy the whole, nor indeed any con- 
siderable part of it. 

It is indisputably true that every government has a general interest, 
as every good man certainly has a special interest, in preserving and 
promoting the public morals. Homeless people are generally an idle 
people, and idle people almost always become vicious. It has been 
aptly said, " an idle mind is the devil's work-shop." Men with homes 
are sometimes vicious, but men without homes are generally so. As a 
conservator of the public morals, I would pass this bill, and thus pro- 
mote the general loelfare. 

We all have a stake in the happiness of our kind. Poverty and hap- 
piness are not incompatible. Indeed, they may be found in very good 
companionship. But when poverty becomes so inexorable as to turn a 
man, with his wife and children, out of doors, happiness is very apt to 
take its departure. A very sublime degree of piety might enable one 
of us to exclaim, " the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have 
nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head," and yet be 
happy. But, I take leave to say, it has fallen to the lot of but few of 
us to be blessed with such a sublimity of piety. As one who looks to 
the happiness of the people, I will vote for this bill, and in this way pro- 
mote the general welfare. _ • 

Every man who loves his country will sow the seeds of patriotism, 
not among thorns, nor upon stony ground, but upon good ground, 
where they may vegetate and bring forth fruit, ten, sixty, and an hun- 
dred fold. 

When the hundreds and thousands of your homeless people look out 
upon your vast domains, and see them tenanted only by wild beasts, 
they will ask, is my poverty so great a crime that my government pre- 
fers these beasts to me ? am I to be kept in penury and want, and leave 
to my children no inheritance but poverty, whilst my government 
guards, like a surly mastiff, this mighty wilderness, which God in his 
providence has created for man, and not for beasts? These men's 
hearts will become stony, and the seeds of patriotism, though sown 
therein by your wisest, purest, and best political husbandmen, will not 
vegetate. Withdraw, then, your sullen, dogged watch over these lands. 
Say to your people, Heaven, in its bounteous providence, lias given 
these lands and their fulness for your benefit: go and enjoy them. 



HOMESTEADS. 307 

Their hearts will leap with joy ; the seeds of patriotism, though sown 
by such poor husbandmen as ourselves, will spring up and grow. They 
will put forth shoots that will entwine themselves about the country, 
and, growing stronger as they grow older, they will knit the hearts of 
the people to the government as with threads of steel. As I would 
encourage patriotism, I would pass this bill, and thus promote the general 
welfare. 

The whole country as a unit, and all its parts, is and are interested 
in the profitable employment of the productive industry of the nation. 
It has been well said that " the man who makes two blades of grass grow 
this year, where but one grew last year, is a benefactor of his race." 
How much more must he be a benefactor who subtracts hundreds and 
thousands from the consuming, and adds them to the producing classes ; 
or causes by his judicious policy, a barren wilderness to pour its mil- 
lions into the nation's store-house ! As I would employ labor — as I 
would reduce the number of consumers and increase the number of pro- 
ducers ; as I would reap rich harvests next year, where nothing has 
been planted this year — I would pass this bill, and in this way promote 
the general welfare. 

If the public morals may be improved, the public happiness promoted, 
patriotism enlarged, and the wealth of the nation increased by the pas- 
sage of this bill, why shall we not pass it ? 

We have seen there is no lack of power. It seems to be promotive 
of the general welfare. If there be well-founded objections to its pas- 
sage, they must therefore exist in some other quarter. This leads me 
to inquire whether any general or local interest will be injured if the 
bill passes ? 

It has been urged by the representatives from the old states that it 
will draw off their population. That the new states will grow strong 
under its operations, whilst the old states will grow proportionably weak. 
This objection is not well taken. 

That there will be an impetus given to emigration, if the bill passes, 
is possible, but of its character, in the main, there can be no question. 
The landed proprietors — those who have comfortable homes, and are 
living independently — will find no sufficient inducement in the provisions 
of this bill to abandon those lands, give up their homes, and seek the 
privations incident to a new country. The well settled and prosperous 
portion of your citizens will not leave you to embrace the advantages 
of this bill. 

In all the old states there are large numbers who are landless and 
houseless, who are dependent on the bounty or favor of others for the 
means of living. There are many thousands who belong to the con- 
suming ratlver than to the producing class. Is it your interest or your 
policy to retain such a population ? Is it not better to give them up, let 
them go, and even encourage their exit? I do not mean to say that 
these people, under other circumstances, might not be good and profita- 
ble citizens. I intend to say that a man without a house, and without 
a home, is very likely to fall into bad habits, and to become an incubus 
upon the country in which he lives. And that it is therefore better to 
encourage this emigration to a country where he can have land, a house, 
a home, and where he will be almost certain to become a useful citizen. 

Of the thousands in the old states who have neither lands nor houses, 



308 • ALBERT G. BROWN. 

how few will ever rise above their present position ! Some, I know, will 
set poverty at defiance, and move on to independence, or, it may be, to 
fortune. But the great mass will live and die as they have begun life, 
with no estate but penury. 

In this view of the subject, the local interests of the old states will not 
be injured, but must, on the contrary, be essentially promoted by the 
passage of this bill. 

I can imagine no worse condition of society than where a considerable 
portion of the people are without homes of their own, nor any better 
condition than where every man is his own landlord. Instead of send- 
ing sheriffs with armed j)08Sgs to collect rents for the lordly proprietor, 
let us say to the unhappy tenants. Give up these lands, and take others 
that are' better. They are the free-will offering of your government. 
In all this I see no sacrifice, but rather the promotion of the local in- 
terests of the old states. 

The fear has been expressed that the passage of this bill will encou- 
rage an influx of foreigners, and that, instead of 500,000 per annum, 
we shall have 1,000,000 of emigrants to our shores. I do not think so. 
All come now that can get here. They come for freedom, and not for 
• land. But suppose this prediction should prove true, I shall not be 
appalled. Let them come; yes, sir, let them come. They are of the 
same great family with ourselves. Heaven made this mighty continent 
not for our benefit alone, but for the use and benefit of all mankind. 
Let them come to it freely. It is the gift of God, and we have no right 
to withhold it from his people. 

What is the objection to an increase of our foreign population ? ^ I 
have heard but one that is worthy of consideration ; and that is, 
that they congregate about our towns, oftentimes become unruly, and 
too frequently swell the calendars of crime. This bill strikes down tins 
objection at a single blow. It encourages these people to abandon the 
purlieus of your towns and cities ; to give up vagrancy and crime, and 
become the owners, occupants, and independent cultivators of the soil. 
Does any man object to the Irish or German emigrant who cultivates 
the soil with his own hands? Is he not as orderly, as quiet, and as law- 
abiding a citizen as your native sons t And do not the products of his 
labor go as far towards an increase of your national wealth ? For one, 
I am willing to receive all who come to us from abroad, if they come to 
cultivate the soil. 

Heaven has bounded our republic with two mighty oceans, thus placing 
a barrier deep and wide between us and the despots of the old world. 
I would not impiously defy the protection of Providence by crossing this 
barrier to attack despotism in its stronghold ; but upon every breeze 
that sweeps the Atlantic I would send a message to the oppressed mil- 
lions of Europe, bidding them come — come to an asylum on these shores, 
prepared by the Almighty, and defended by his chosen people. 

It is said again, that this is a scheme of the Jesuits to extend the 
Catholic religion in our country, and to cripple or put down the Pro- 
testant faith. I was raised a Protestant believer, and I hope to die a 
professor of the Protestant religion. But it is no part of my Protestant 
faith to fear the Catholics. I am no more afraid that the Catholics will 
upset the Protestant church, than I am tliat the subjcc^ts of crowned 
heads in Europe will overturn Democracy in America. To the Catholic 



HOMESTEADS. 309 

as well as to the Protestant emigrant, I extend a hearty greeting, and a 
cordial welcome. If he cultivates the soil, he will most likely be a 
Democrat; and whether he worships in a Catholic or Protestant church, 
he will make us a good citizen. 

I have heard it said, the effect of this bill, if it becomes a law, will be 
to encourage foreign emigration, and that as most of these come to us 
with strong anti-slavery prejudices, we of the South are but nerving the 
arm of an enemy when we advocate its passage. If slavery is to be 
defended by excluding those from abroad who have prejudices against it, 
its doom is fixed, and the sooner the fiat for its extinction goes forth the 
better. I place my defence of this institution on the high ground of 
moral, social, religious, and political propriety, and if I cannot defend 
it on this ground I wull not defend it at all. The right is never so much 
in danger as when its advocates shrink from an open and manly vindica- 
tion of it. Justice may be overthrown if its votaries skulk and prevaricate 
in its support. Resting the defence of slavery upon high moral principles, 
I do not fear its overthrow, unless by the brute force of superior numbers. 
An untamed multitude, revelling in the insolence of unbridled power, 
may tear down the Constitution and bury slavery beneath its ruins. If 
this is the destiny to which the mighty North is conducting us, it does 
not matter whether we reach it during our pilgrimage on earth, or leave 
the journey half concluded, and entail on our children the melancholy 
task of following it to the end. 

If American-born citizens will do their duty, we have nothing to fear 
from our emigrant population. If the native son refuses to do his duty, 
and wages war upon the Constitution, and upon the rights of his neigh- 
bors, we have then nothing to hope from any quarter. We must stand 
firmly by our section, and self-poised in the vindication of our rights. 

If we contrast the relative position of the two great sections as to the 
public domain, we shall see how little there is in the idea that this bill 
gives an undue advantage to the North. 

There is comparatively little soil in the Southern States belonging to, 
or under the control of the United States, and that little is of inferior 
quality. There are vast tracts in the Western States and territories, and 
much of it is of very superior quality. It follows, therefore, that, under 
the present system of disposing of the public lands, emigration to the 
Southern States must fall off rapidly at first, and presently cease alto- 
gether, whilst the stream to the West will increase in volume, and con- 
tinue for a great while. The refuse lands in Mississippi, Alabama, 
Louisiana, Florida, Missouri, and Arkansas, will never be occupied at 
$1.25 per acre, and out of these states we have little or no government 
lands in the slave states. The good lands in Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, 
Minnesota, and the western territories, will very soon be occupied at 
$1.25 an acre, or even at a higher figure. 

I am for changing the policy so as to give us occupants for our refuse 
lands ; and if in doing this, we send tenants to your virgin soil a few 
years earlier than they would otherwise go, I do not still perceive but 
that we shall be more gainers than losers by the operation. 

I submit to my southern friends whether it is not better to divide the 
emigration with the North for a few years at least ? Is it not better to 
take an addition to our population of a million in five years, and give the 
North two millions in the same time, than to stop emigration to the South 



310 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

entirely, and let the North have her two millions at the end of ten years ? 
I take this to be true, that without a change of policy we shaU never get 
our poor lands settled ; and it is just as true, that the virgin soil of the 
West will be occupied in a few years, whether we change our policy or 
not. I want a change. It will people our lands, and if it has the effect 
of giving to the North as many emigrants in five years as she would 
otherwise get in ten^ let it be so. It is only a question of time with 
them. Emigrants will go to them after a while under any policy. With 
us it is different. Our lands have all been picked and culled, and the 
refuse tracts may be peopled under this bill, but never at a cost of ^1.25 
per acre. I throw out these observations to show my southern friends 
that this is not a losing business to us. 

I admit the obligation of a representative to guard the interest of his 
own constituents, and in this view I am for reform. I admit my sectional 
predilections — prejudice, if you please — and yet in this view I am for 
reform. Regarded in any and every light, I am for that policy which 
will populate our vacant lands, and give homes to the homeless and houses 
to the houseless. 

The people who will be chiefly benefited by this bill, are among the 
most meritorious and yet the least cared for of all our population. The 
landless, the homeless, the houseless — who are they, and what are they 
in the old states ? Hardy sons of toil, slighted by the world for the 
crime of being poor, and elevated to the dignity of freemen only on elec- 
tion days. In the new states, under the operations of this bill, they will 
become freeholders and householders, and will be at all times, and in 
every season, equal to the proudest nabobs in Christendom. 

I know something, Mr. Chairman, of squatter life. It was my fortune 
to have been raised in a new and unsettled country. I know something 
of the toils, and hardships, and privations encountered by the squatters. 
I shall not detain you with a recital of all that I have seen, and heard, 
and felt. One incident I may relate. I will tell you why my heart is 
with these people. When I was a boy — a very little boy — an honest, 
but poor man settled (squatted is a better word) in the country where I 
yet reside. Removing from South Carolina, he pitched his tent amid 
the unbroken forest in the dead of winter. lie had two sons able to 
work. He was in a strange land, without money and without friends. 
But with an iron will, such as none but squatters have, he attacked the 
forest. It receded before him, and in three short months the sun, Avhich 
had been shut out for many centuries, was permitted to shine on a spot 
of earth in which the squatter had planted corn. Day by day he might 
have been seen following his plough, while his two sons plied the hoe. Toil 
brought him bread — and he raised up his sons to know, as Heaven's wise 
decree, that " by the sweat of their brows they should gain their bread." 
Industry and economy brought not wealth, but a competency. _ The 
elder of the two sons followed the example of the father, and cultivated 
the soil. Fortune smiled and he prospered. The younger, with such 
moderate qualification as a frontier country could afford, studied law and 
practised with success. In an evil hour for his private fortune, he was 
drawn into politics. He was elected to the state legislature, to Congress, 
judge of the circuit court, governor of his state, to Congress again and 
again, but he never forgot that he was the squatter's son. He stands 
before you to-day the humble advocate of the squatter's rights. "^ 



HOMESTEADS. 311 

That, which was my father's fortune, and the fortune of his sons, has 
been, and may be again the fortune of others in a more pre-eminent 
degree. ■^ Nature has created no aristocracy of intellect. Despise not 
these squatters. Among them is many a rough diamond. They and 
their sons may rise to the first honors in the republic. Reared in no 
hot bed of aristocracy, never enfeebled by the enervating influences of 
wealth and luxury, their bodies are capable of unlimited endurance, and 
their minds are prepared for that rational progress which is the pride 
and boast of " Young America," and of the age in which we live. Is it 
at all wonderful, Mr. Chairman, that my heart should be always open to 
the privations and hardships, the wants and sufferings of the squatters 
on the public lands ? 

My associations with these people have never ceased, and I trust they 
never may. 'I have partaken of their fare. I have eat their bread, and 
slept beneath their humble roofs. Generous to a fault, with hearts free 
from guile, they receive their guests with an open, frank, and manly 
bearing, that says at once. You are welcome. A squatter never says 
from his lips / am glad to see you, and in his heart wish the devil had 
you. This is a refinement on duplicity which belongs alone to the " rich 
and well-born." 

I approach that point in this discussion which, of all others, is the 
most interesting : The best and most certain means of securing every 
man a home. How may this be done ? My friend, the mover of the 
main proposition [Mr. Johnson of Tennessee], thinks this end will the 
most certainly, and in the best manner be secured, by giving to every 
man the right to settle on the public lands, and by conveying to him the 
title mfee simple, after a continuous residence of five years. 

I am not going to make an argument against my friend's proposition. 
I honor the head that conceived it. The heart that is capable of such 
appreciation of the poor man's wants, is entitled to and receives the 
homage of my poor esteem. The nation, and, indeed, all mankind, 
should yield a grateful tribute to the mind that, almost unaided, has 
forced the consideration of this subject upon the American Congress. 
No ; I am not about to oppose the main proposition ; but I am about to 
inquire whether, in its details, it offers us the best guarantee that the 
first great object sought by us, that of giving homes to the homeless, 
will most certainly be obtained. 

It proposes to surrender to the occupant the absolute title, after a con- 
tinuous residence of five years on the land. If all men had capacity for 
managing with success their own private affairs ; if all were provident, 
and we had security against the misfortunes of ten thousand kinds to 
which men are subject ; if we had not already a full realization of the 
fact, that 

" Man's inhumanity to man, 

Makes countless thousands mourn ;" 

if men would learn to "love their neighbors as themselves;" then I 
should think that no better scheme had ever been devised than that of 
my friend from Tennessee, for securing every man a home. But we 
must look at men as they are, and shape our acts accordingly. 

I feel under no sort of obligation to give land to any man by my vote, 
to be used in paying debts iniprovidently or viciouslv contracted. I 



312 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

shall not undertalce to pay debts forced upon any man by misfortune. 
If debts have been contracted in consequence of disease or death ; or of 
fire or water^ or any other misfortune ; or if, as is too often the case, they 
have been contracted by a foolish improvidence, or by drinking and gam- 
ing, I cannot and will not, in my legislative capacity, undertake to 
provide the means for their payment. 

Suppose you give these lands in the mode proposed : Is there not 
great danger, that at the end of the five years' occupancy, a great 
deal of them will pass into the hands of sharpers and speculators, as the 
bounties to your soldiers have passed ? It is no disparagement to man- 
kind to say, that hundreds and thousands of them have no capacity for 
the transaction of business. God has made them so. May not a class 
of men more cunning than those for whom you are providing, draw set- 
tlers into contracts, involve them in debt, and at the end of five years, 
seize the very land you are now so generously giving ? 

It is not more a matter of reproach than of pity, that men will drink 
and gamble, and thus waste their substance. One man plies another 
with intoxicating drinks, or decoys him to the gaming table. In the 
one or the other case, he is made the easy victim of craft or villany, and 
this land which you are now voting in a spirit of generosity, may go to 
settle the account between them. 

It is no man's fault that misfortunes fall upon him, and yet disease 
may prostrate him and involve him in debt. His domestic animals may 
die. Too much rain or too much drought, a late spring or an early 
frost, may cut off or destroy his crop. Floods, storms, or fires, may 
lay waste his property. A thousand misfortunes like these may run 
him in debt ; and then inexorable creditors may come and take away 
his land, and leave him no better off than before you gave it to him. 

To all this I am opposed, and against all these contingencies I would 
provide, as far as possible ; and hence the substitute which I have pro- 
posed to the original bill. 

The leading idea of my substitute is, that the settler shall have the 
right of occupancy so long as he chooses to remain on the land, being 
never required to pay for it, but always at liberty to do so whenever it 
becomes his desire and his interest to own the soil in fee simple. The 
fee under my substitute remains in the government until the occupant 
can receive it with safety, of which he is made the judge. If the sub- 
stitute is adopted, it will make no difference how a squatter's debts mny 
have been contracted — whether by improvidence' or dissipation or mis- 
fortune — his home is secure. The government gives him the right of 
occupancy, and no power on earth can take it from him. Secure in its 
possession, the energies of his mind and body will be free to expand 
and rise above the petty tyranny of a neighboring creditor. He will 
not be afraid to improve his grounds, or repair his fence, or stop the 
leaks in his cabin, lest he excite the eye of cupidity. He will not 
watch the clouds with a aching brow, lest it fail to rain upon his grow- 
ing crop, thus dooming it to destruction, and himself to bitter disap- 
pointment in getting the means to buy his preemption. Let fortune 
smile, or fortune frown ; let it rain, or let it shine ; let storms or 
devastating floods come upon him, he may look them all in the face, and 
say, this is my home, this the castle of my defence : my government 
stretches over me its strong protecting arms, and bids my heart be still, for 



HOMESTEADS. 313 

in tliis, at least, I am secure. I fix no five years of security ; and after 
that, nor any other period, expose the poor man's home to execution 
sale ; but for five years, and for all time thereafter, he is made secure 
in its occupancy. He need not look with a sad heart to the end of the 
five years, nor fear that his creditors will then come to take possession 
of his home, and turn him out of doors. His wife need not water with 
her tears a favorite plant, nor count the hours that are bringing the 
moment of her separation from her humble cottage. His children may 
pursue their childish sports, nor sigh as they look for the last time on 
some favored spot, made sacred by the recollection of many an happy 
hour spent there in childish revelry. Whatever may be his and their 
relations with the world, the whole family — husband, wife, and children 
— may rest secure in the possession of their home. There they may 
cluster around them the comforts of life — nor disturb their moments of 
quiet or repose with anxious fears, lest some inexorable creditor shall 
snatch it from them. Such, sir, is my substitute. 

If fortune smiles on the humble occupant ; if, by his labor, he has 
enhanced the value of the land, and for this, or for any other reason, 
he desires to possess it in his own right, he may pay for it at the mini- 
mum price of $1.25. This is his privilege ; but it is a privilege that 
belongs to no one else. If, by his labor, he makes the land worth ^10 
an acre, he may still buy it for $1.25; and this he may do at the end 
of five years, or twenty years, or at any other time that suits him best. 
And if he never does it, the government will never permit another to take 
it from him. If he has made an unfortunate location, my substitute 
allows him to change it ; and this he may do as often as he chooses — it 
being stipulated that whenever a place is abandoned or given up by an 
occupant it is again subject to entry or occupancy by any one who may 
choose to take it. If the husband dies, his right of occupancy survives 
to his widow. If both husband and wife should die, leaving infant chil- 
dren, the fee passes to these children, and it may be sold for their 
benefit. This provision has been inserted for two reasons : first, infant 
children cannot occupy the land alone; and secondly, these objects of 
misfortune, thrown, without father or mother, on the charities of the 
world, are entitled to our protection. If they find a parent's care no- 
where else, I would let them to this extent, at least, find it in their 
government. 

I have purposely excluded the adult children from all interest in the 
homestead, and for the reason that, as they become of age, each one 
acquires the same right that his father had before him ; and I desired to 
encourage the rising generation to enter upon the active duties of life at 
an early age, instead of lingering under the parental roof. 

That the new states within which these lands lie might have no just 
ground of complaint, I have expressly reserved to them the right of 
taxation. It will be the privilege of states to tax the settler, and in 
default of payment to sell his right of occupancy. The purchaser at 
such sale will acquire the same and no greater right than the settler. 
That is, he will acquire the right of occupancy for an indefinite term, 
with the privilege of entering the land at his pleasure, and to suit his 
own convenience. 

There is one feature in my substitute which I must not omit to men- 
tion. It perpetuates the existing preemption laws. The same parties 



314 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

who are entitled to preempt under the law as it now is, will have the 
right if the substitute is adopted, and they will enter upon the lands 
under the same regulations and in the same way that they now do. The 
only alteration proposed being in the removal of the twelve months' 
limitation, and all other limitations as to the time when the right of oc- 
cupancy shall cease. The right of occupancy without payment, under 
ray substitute, is unlimited, it being the exclusive privilege, but never 
the duty, of the occupant to buy the land. The perpetuation of the ex- 
isting law of preemption is better than the enactment of new laws. 
First, because the old laws have been adjudicated by the courts ; second, 
because they have been construed by the executive departments; and 
thirdly, because the people generally understand them, and will need 
only to be told, if the substitute passes, that the law exists just as it did 
before, with the single exception that they will not be compelled to pay 
until it suits them. 

I have already pointed out some of the public and private advantages 
which will result from the passage of the original bill. All these will 
result in an equal degree from the adoption of the substitute. I have 
pointed out some of the advantages which are peculiar to my proposi- 
tion ; but there are others to which I must advert. 

The proposition has been assailed on the ground of its squandering 
the public lands and cutting off the revenue resulting from their sale. I 
shall show that there is nothing in these objections. What is it that 
you give under my substitute ? Nothing but the right of occupancy — 
the right to occupy a bit of land in the wilderness, and therefore unpro- 
ductive — and the right to improve and cultivate that land, and make it 
useful to the occupant and beneficial to the general wealth. In this 
there is not only a private, but public advantage. You make that pro- 
ductive which was before useless, and of no public or private benefit. 
But you answer, that I put an occupant on the land who may be a drone 
— one who will not cultivate or buy it himself, and yet, by his occu- 
pancy, keeps off all others; and generally that these unlimited rights 
of occupancy will prevent sales, and therefore destroy the land revenue. 
In all this, I think you are mistaken. That which a squatter on the 
public lands most needs is to have his energies — physical and mental — 
left free. This twelve months' limitation hangs like an incubus about 
him. It paralyzes his body and disturbs his mind. Whilst he can hope 
to pay for his land at the expiration of the time limited by law, his en- 
ergies are unshaken; but when hope dies — when, from any one of a 
thousand causes I could name, he foresees that he cannot pay, his en- 
ergies sink — then it is he becomes a drone. He will not work, because 
he sees that every lick he strikes enhances the value of his little home, 
and more strongly attracts the eye of the speculator. These are the 
shackles that have bound many an honest and industrious man, and 
made him an easy victim to idleness and vice. Let us knock them off 
— let the man's mind and body have fair play. Give him plenty of 
time and plenty of land to work out his fortune, and nine times in ten 
he will do it. 

Your present preemption system is a curse to the settler. He is first 
inveigled on to a piece of public land, and then he is afraid to improve 
it, lest some speculator, with more money than himself, shall take it 
from him. It is this fear that cramps his energies, and makes him idle, 



HOMESTEADS. 315 

and sometimes vicious. I have great confidence in the squatters, if jou 
will only give them an open field and a fair fight. 

But, as a revenue measure, I should advocate this bill. Its earliest 
advantages will be found in the increased productions of the country. 
It will, as I said before, subtract largely from the consuming classes, and 
add as largely to the producers. I need not attempt to estimate the ad- 
vantages to the national wealth, if all the loafers and idlers in the 
Union can be set to work. The advantages would indeed be incalcula- 
ble. This measure proposes a bonus to all who will cultivate the soil. 
How many thousands will accept it I cannot say — but that many will I 
have no doubt. 

The next advantage which I anticipate, will be found in the increased 
sales of the public lands. Yes, sir, instead of diminishing, I anticipate 
an increase of revenue from this source ; and particularly if my substi- 
tute is adopted. When a man has settled on a piece of land, and has 
by his labor increased its value from one dollar and a quarter to five or 
ten dollars per acre, he will find many reasons for desiring to possess 
himself of the freehold ; first, because he may want to sell it, and thus 
increase his active wealth ; or he may, and in many cases he will, prefer 
to own the land in his own right, that he may enjoy the privilege of 
making an equal distribution of it among his children ; and then there 
is a certain feeling of independence which all men experience in own- 
ing, by a clear title, the lands and houses they occupy. These are some 
of the reasons which will induce the settlers to purchase the land. What 
we ask of you is simply the right to occupy, free from all restraint and 
apprehension ; and we give you the guarantee which these and other 
reasons afford, all of which are founded in human nature, that your sales 
will be increased instead of being diminished. 

I pass over the general advantages resulting from early settlement on 
your frontiers ; I say nothing of the gregarious habits of men — how one 
man goes because another has gone before him. I will not pause to 
count how much more land men will want when their industry has lifted 
them up in the world. These and many other considerations I pass 
over, because my time is almost out. 

A word in conclusion to the friends of this measure. 

It is an old trick in this House, when the enemies of a bill cannot 
slaughter it in an open field, to attack it in ambuscade. Many impor- 
tant bills have been killed off in this way, and you could no more dis- 
cover the hand that strikes the blow, than you could tell " who it was 
that struck Billy Patterson." The bounty-land bill was disposed of in 
this way for ten years. 

The modus operandi is this : We go into committee of the whole on 
a bill. Here the ayes and noes are not recorded, and consequently no 
responsibility attaches to any man's vote. All manner of amendments 
are offered. Some intended in good faith to perfect the bill, but much 
the greater portion to make it ridiculous. They are passed on a division, 
or by tellers indiscriminately, until finally the features of the bill are so 
distorted that its friends do not recognise it, and they turn from it in 
disgust. It is then left to the tender mercies of its enemies, and they 
table it without compunction or hesitation. 

We are about closing the debate on this bill, and then we shall be 
brought to vote on amendments. I anticipate the usual course of pro- 



316 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

ceeding. I shall not be surprised to see an amendment proposing to 
give every man a horse and a plough ; another to supply him with all 
the necessary farming utensils, and a third to give him a negro to work 
his land, and others of like kind, and all intended to bring the bill into 
ridicule, and finally to destroy it. I need not say that such a mode of 
attack is ungenerous. Give us a fair record vote ; let evei'y man take 
the responsibility, and if the bill is lost, the country will know who were 
its friends and who its enemies, and with this we shall be satisfied. 

I call upon the friends of this measure to stand by it and protect it as 
far as possible in committee against these amendments. If amendments 
are proposed in good faith, let us give to them a just, fair, and proper 
consideration. But let us stand united against all ridiculous and frivo- 
lous amendments meant only to destroy the bill. If improper amend- 
ments are adopted in committee, let us not on that account abandon the 
bill, or allow it to be tabled in the House. We can have the ayes and 
noes in the House on each amendment, and thus vote them out or force 
gentlemen to stand by them on the record. This is the only policy that 
will save this bill from the fate of many of its predecessors. 

With an ardent desire that this measure may pass — that it may be 
sent as a messenger of joy to the humble abodes of the squatters ; and 
that, as a harbinger of mercy, it may visit the landless, the houseless, and 
the homeless everywhere, I take my leave of it for the time being, and 
commend it to the paternal care of its friends in the House. 



KIYEKS AND HARBORS. 

SPEECH, UNDER THE FIVE MINUTE RULE, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTA- 
TIVES, JULY 23d, 1852, ON THE SUBJECT OF RIVER AND HARBOR 

IMPROVEMENTS, 

I OFFER the following amendment : — 

For removing obstructions from the mouth of Pascagoula river, in the state of Mis- 
sissippi, $60,000. 

Gentlemen belonging to the Committee on Commerce say that appro- 
priations of this kind have not been inserted in the bill because they 
have not been asked for. I sent to that committee a petition for this 
very appropriation, and not only has it been left out, but no sort of 
notice has been taken of it. 

I was proceeding to say, that the members of the Committee on Com- 
merce were wholly mistaken, as far as the proposed appropriation was 
concerned, when they said that it had been left out of the bill because 
it was not asked for. More than once, petitions for this appropriation 
have gone to that committee through the ordinary channels. I have not, 
it is true, gone and besought the members of the committee in person, 
to put into the bill this or any other appropriation., I have neither beg- 
ged nor bargained for that which I have a right to demand in the name 
of my constituents. My constituents petitioned, as was their right ; and 
I presented their petition, as was my duty. And I took it for granted, 
that the members of the Committee on Commerce, like the members of 



RIVERS AND HARBORS. 317 

the other committees of this House, ^vould discharge their duty. Still, 
I find this bill reported, and no notice taken of those petitions. I find, 
also, and it is that of which I especially complain, that the state which I 
have the honor in part to represent upon this floor — a state which sup- 
plies to this government one-seventh part of its exports, and, by conse- 
quence, one-seventh part of its imports, and which, therefore, supplies 
one-seventh part of the whole revenue of the government derived from 
imports — has not had appropriated to it in this bill one single solitary 
dollar ; not one farthing. Sir, the state of Mississippi has been entirely 
overlooked in the preparation of this bill. 

A Voice. So has Virginia. 

Mr. Brown. No, I think Virginia has not been entirely omitted. She 
has something, but Mississippi has not one dollar from the commence- 
ment to the conclusion of the bill. This is the only item that has been 
asked for, and it was due to that state that it should have been granted ; 
or if not granted, the petitions should have had at least a decent and 
respectful consideration. Why is this ? Why are our petitions thus 
trampled under foot and spit upon ? Is it because the Mississippi dele- 
gation come here subscribing to the doctrine of a strict construction of 
the Constitution ? Are you going to establish the principle in this 
country, that money is to be doled out to those only who believe that a 
liberal construction of the Constitution is right ? and are you going to 
refuse appropriations to those who take a different view of their duty to 
the Constitution ? Are the liberal constructionists — those who believe 
the government may and ought to make these appropriations, about to 
band together, seize the public money and appropriate it to themselves, 
and will they deny to those who dispute their power to appropriate all 
participation in a common fund ? If that be the principle upon which 
you are going to act, why, let us understand it. I understand that the 
treasure of the nation is the common property of the nation, and is not 
to be distributed to the states according to the opinions of their repre- 
sentatives on a constitutional question. We hear all around us that gen- 
tlemen have not been able to get their items of appropriations put into 
this bill, because they themselves believe that such appropriations are 
unconstitutional. Sir, have we fallen upon times like these, that gentle- 
men band themselves together to seize upon the national treasure and 
appropriate it to their own use, denying all share to those who chance 
not to agree with them in their construction of the constitutional power ? 
If that is the doctrine, let us understand it. 

I have been falsely charged with being a disunionist ; but if it be true 
that gentlemen who Ijelieve the national treasury is subject to the unre- 
stricted legislation of Congress, may seize the common fund, divide it 
among themselves, and deny all participation to those who will not justify 
the division, then, sir, I say it would be as honorable to consort with 
highwaymen as to live in such a Union. When the surplus revenue was 
distributed, were Virginia and Mississippi denied their distributive share 
because they opposed the distribution ? No ; if you have so much respect 
for our opinions as not to give us our share of the money because we 
think you ought not to use it in this way, then I pray you carry your 
respect a little further. We believe that you have no power to tax us as 
you do under the protective policy. Will you so fur respect our opinions 
as to withhold taxation? No, sir; you will impose taxation whatever 



318 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

may be our opinions ; and you do it without stint or mercy. It is only 
when you come to disburse the money that you are seized with these 
violent fits of respect for our opinions. If you cannot appropriate 
money in my district out of respect for my constitutional opinions on 
the subject of these appropriations, then carry your respect a little 
further, and quit taxing my constituents until I am satisfied that you 
are doing it according to the Constitution. If you may take money out 
of my district without my consent, you may put it back without my con- 
sent. If we are to have a partial system of distribution, then let us have 
a partial system of taxation. If my state is to be thus excluded from 
the appropriations, let her be stricken from the tax list. Cease to draw 
money from her, and she relinquishes for ever all claim upon the national 
treasury. But if the hand that gathers is thrust into her pocket, she 
calls it robbery if you close against her the hand that distributes. 



GENERAL COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS. 

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 20, 1852, ON THE 
PROPOSITION TO ESTABLISH A GENERAL COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS. 

Mr. Brown, I ask the unanimous consent of the House to introduce 
the resolution which I proposed on Friday last. 

There being no objection, the resolution was read, as follows : — 

^ " Resolved, That the following be added to the rules of the House of llepresenta- 
tives : — 

•' There shall be appointed a standing coniniittee of the House of Representatives, 
to consist of fifteen members, to be called The General Committee on Claims, whose 
duty it shall be to report a bill at each session of Congress making appropriations for 
the payment of private claimants. It shall be the duty of the other committees of 
this House, when they have prepared a written report in favor of any claim, to 
transuut their report, together with the evidence on which it is based, to said Geuenil 
Committee on Claims ; and if said committee, after due examination, shall concur in 
said report, they shall insert an item for the payment of said claim in the bill for the 
payment of private claimants, and thereupon submit to the House the report and evi- 
dence aforesaid, to be printed or otherwise disposed of, as the House may direct. 
And upon the demand of a single member, a separate vote shall be had on any sec- 
tion of said bill designated by him, notwithstanding the previous question may have 
been moved and seconded." 

Mr. Brown said : Mr. Speaker, it is conceded that the present mode 
of treating private claims amounts to a denial of justice, and ought to 
be changed. 

For several years a proposition was urged upon Congress to establish 
a board of claims. For a time I was strongly inclined to sustain this 
proposition; but reflection satisfied me that, to make it efiicicnt, it would 
be dangerous, and possibly a violation of the Constitution. 

A board of claims would investigate ; but it is not investigation that 
we want. We want action — final action. Our present committees inves- 
tigate claims and report bills, but we do not pass those bills. Bills to 
which there is no reasonable objection remain for years upon the calen- 
dar without action. The claimant grows weary and sick with hopes 



GENERAL COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS. 319 

deferred, but Congress ■will not act. The bills are not passed, and just 
claims are not paid. This ought not to be. The creditors of the 
government have as much right to their pay as the creditors of private 
persons. 

These tedious and sickening delays ought to be remedied. It cannot 
be safely done, in my judgment, by the appointment of a board of 
claims. It is the least objection (and yet it is an objection) to the ap- 
pointment of such a board that it will increase Executive patronage, 
already grown quite too large. 

If such a board is created, it will, as I have said, give us investigation; 
but what then? "No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in 
consequence of appropriations made by law," says the Constitution. 
Will you appropriate an aggregate sum, and allow the board to check it 
from the treasury as they may see fit, and apply it to the payment of 
claims ? To do this, you must delegate to the board a power over the 
public funds which belongs exclusively to Congress, and which I very 
much question your right to transfer to another. The right to appro- 
priate presupposes the existence of an object to which the appropriation 
may rightfully be made. The Constitution, in my judgment, contem- 
plates that Congress shall decide as to the merits of the object to which 
the money is to be applied before making the appropriation. To make 
the appropriation first, and then leave others to decide as to the merits 
of the object to which it may be applied, is to shrink from the perform- 
ance of one-half, and that to the treasury the most important half of 
your duty. 

Could you appropriate $10,000,000 for the support of the army, and 
leave to the Secretary of War, or even to the President and cabinet, the 
privilege of applying it as he or they should see fit ? Possibly you may 
have the power. But its exercise would dissatisfy the country, and 
strain, if it did not break the Constitution. It would, to say the least, be 
a very loose control over the public funds. It would be a still more loose 
control of them to appropriate $1,000,000 or $500,000, or a greater or 
less sum, and leave a board of commissioners to parcel it out among 
private claimants as the board should adjudge right. To do such an 
act would be to invite constant repetitions of the disgraceful Gardiner 
frauds. I am very confident Congress will commit no such folly. 

What then shall we do ? After the board has investigated and re- 
ported favorably on claims, shall we pass bills to pay them ? This 
brings us just to the point where we now are; for I repeat, it is action, 
and not investigation, that we want — action, action. The passage of 
bills, that is what we want. And why is it that we do not act ? why is 
it that we do not pass bills ? It is, sir, because we have not confidence, 
we have not full confidence in the investigations of our committees. 
And shall we have more confidence, I pray you, in a board of claims ? 
Will we distrust our own committees, and rely with confidence on the 
board of claims ? I think not. When we are called to act, when we 
are called to pass bills, to make appropriations, we shall have the same 
difficulty that we now have. Some doubting Thomas will ejaculate those 
cabalistic words, "I object !" and in a twinkling the bill fades from our 
view, and the poor claimant is turned away in sorrow. 

I want something practical ; something that will give the claimants 
justice ; something that will protect the treasury against fraud ; keep 



320 ALBERT G. BROAVN. 

the people's money under the control of the people's representatives, 
and at the same time relieve the Speaker's table from that accumulated 
and accumulating mass of private business under which it has literally 
groaned for five-and-twenty years. 

The rule which I propose will do this. I have reflected on it ma- 
turely, and my confidence is entire that it will be efficient for all the 
purposes I have indicated. 

What does it propose ? First, a committee of fifteen, to be styled 
the General Committee on Claims ; and why a committee of fifteen ? I 
have, in my own judgment, fixed a large number, because the functions 
of the committee will be onerous, varied, and perplexing. No small 
committee could well discharge the duties which I propose to devolve on 
this general committee. 

What will be the duties of this committee ? To exercise a supervisory 
jurisdiction, in the first place, over all the reports from the other com- 
mittee's touching private claims. To stand as a kind of appellate court, 
having no original jurisdiction, but authorized and required to review the 
reports of other committees, and only to ask the action of Congress in 
case they approve such reports ; and, in the second place, to report a 
bill for the payment of private claimants, the items of which shall in all 
cases be founded on the approved reports of other committees. 

Allow me to illustrate, by supposed cases, the practical workings of 
this rule, if it shall be adopted. A claim is referred to the Committee 
on the Post Office and Post Roads; another to the Committee on Public 
Lands, and another to the Committee on Claims. Each of these com- 
mittees makes a favorable report. These reports, and the evidence to 
sustain them, they send to the General Committee on Claims. That 
committee, after due investigation, approve each one of the reports, and 
thereupon they insert a separate item in the bill for the payment of 
private claimants to cover each claim, and then lay the report and evi- 
dence before the House to be printed, if the House shall so direct. And 
so of every other claim. It will be seen that each particular item will 
be sustained by a separate report, and that report will be supported by 
the concurrent judgment of two separate committees. The bill thus 
reported must of necessity go to the Committee of the Whole House, 
and being here considered, item by item, every member of Congress will 
have ample opportunity for the fullest and fairest investigation. When 
the bill is at last reported to the House for final action, each particular 
item will have passed the ordeal of the three separate committees : First, 
the present committee of nine ; next, the proposed committee of fifteen; 
and lastly, the Committee of the Whole House. Having thus run the 
gauntlet, it seems to me no reasonable man could object to a vote by 
yeas and nays, as to whether the bill should become a law. The advan- 
tages which I anticipate are — first, thorough investigation, and there- 
fore entire security to the government ; and secondly, certain action, 
and consequently a hope of justice to claimants. 

If Congress can be induced to act at all, it will generally act justly. 
Congress often does not act because of the anxiety of each member to 
get his own business forward. In the general scramble for precedence 
the avenues of legislation are choked up, private bills are neglected, and 
the rights of private parties disregarded. I desire to change this state 
of things; put all on the siime footing, and this scramble will cease. 



CUBA. 321 

Under the rule which I propose, we shall have but one bill instead of 
many hundred bills. The struggle which is constantly going on here 
for precedence will cease, because all these rival bills will be mem-ed 
into one bill. This bill will never fail of being considered and passed. 
It only remains to determine whether the checks and guards which the 
rule imposes will be sufficient to protect the treasury. In the first place, 
you have the examination of the committees as at present organized ; 
their duties, so far as investigation is concerned, remain unchanged. In 
the second place, we have the proposed committee of fifteen, with no 
original jurisdiction, but sitting only as a revisory court ; it is their duty 
to weigh the evidence and determine whether it sustains the report; and 
thirdly, we have the Committee of the Whole House. All these com- 
mittees must pass affirmatively upon each section of the bill separately, 
before it is laid before the House, and in the House the rule guaranties 
to every member the right to demand a separate vote upon any section 
of the bill to which he may object. Now, it does seem to me that if a 
bill has passed three committees of this House section by section, and 
has then run the hazard of a separate vote by sections in the House, no 
reasonable man ought to object to its becoming a law: 

If the House does not choose to adopt this rule, I hope at least we 
shall do something to relieve private claimants from the crushing and 
overpowering influence of a single member when pronouncing those 
potential words, "I object!" "I object!" How often the heedless or 
captious use of these words has sent honest claimants in sadness and in 
sorrow from this Hall ! Let us snatch from them this unnatural power 
and restore them to their original modest position in our political voca- 
bulary, and we shall have taken one step at least towards a salutary 
reform. 



CUBA. 

REMARKS, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 3, 1S53, ON THE 

CUBA QUESTION. 

Mr. Brown. I do not intend to make an argument in reference to 
the question introduced by my friend from North Carolina [Mr. Ven- 
able] ; but in the course of his speech he has taken positions so contrary 
to those which I believe to be right, that I feel it incumbent upon me, 
having been for a long time associated with that gentleman upon other 
questions, to say, at the first possible moment, that I totally dissent from 
many of the views which he has expressed. If I understood the gentle- 
man, one of his positions was this — and I wish to call his attention to 
it — that the acquisition of the Island of Cuba, by this country, would 
result in the instant abolition of the foreign slave trade. I so understood 
the gentleman. Did I understand him correctly ? 

Mr. Venable assented. 

Mr. Brown. Did the gentleman mean to employ that as an argu- 
ment against the acquisition of the Island of Cuba ? I agree with him 

perfectly, that its acquisition would result in the instantaneous abolition 
21 



322 ALBERT G. BROAVN. 

of the foreign slave trade. That is one of the strong reasons why I 
desire to see it conquered, and why I think the people of the whole 
country ought to desire it. 

Mr. Venable. Will the gentleman indulge me for a moment ? Does 
the gentleman suppose that I advocate the foreign slave trade ? I am 
willing that it should be put down, and put down by the treaty power — 
by the powers which are now employed to put it down. I used the 
argument in this way — that according to the institutions and circum- 
stances of Cuba, and the want of increase of the African population 
there, the x\frican slave trade was indispensable to keep up the supply 
of slave labor, and that being cut off, Cuba would be valueless, unless a 
supply of slave labor could come from somewhere, and the Southern 
States could spare anything better in the world than their slave labor. 

Mr. Brown. That does not at all change my view of the gentleman's 
argument. But the gentleman went on to say further, that the acquisi- 
tion of the Island of Cuba by the United States would be attended with 
imminent danger, and w^ould be the signal for the Queen of Spain and 
the Cortes to issue a decree for emancipating the negroes of the island, 
and that he for one would never vote to reduce any man to the state of 
slavery who had enjoyed one moment of legal freedom. I am not dis- 
posed, at this time, to combat the idea that the Queen and Cortes might 
take the course indicated ; but I wish to make a pause here, and ask my 
honorable friend to take this into consideration, how far a decree issued 
in the midst of a revolution, and intended to circumvent the revolutionists, 
may be regarded as legal and binding. This decree will not be issued, 
according to the argument of the gentleman, because it is right in itself; 
it is not to be based upon any great principle of humanity, nor upon any 
principle of international law, but as a means of punishing the liberators 
of Cuba. If so done, will it not be a fraud upon the rights of the revo- 
lutionary party ? 

Mr. Venable. Will the gentleman allow me again to put myself 
right? The gentleman must recollect this was my statement, that the 
instincts of self-preservation would make it right and proper for the 
Spanish government, if they were satisfied that the invasion of Cuba was 
simply on account of its adaptation to slave labor, and to get possession 
of the slaves, the government of Spain would set them free, just pre- 
cisely as Iw'ould blow up a fortification and destroy a magazine, to keep 
an opposing general from getting possession of them. This having been 
done by the constituted authorities, the Queen and the Cortes, they 
would enjoy regular freedom; and the gentleman knows as well as I do 
that you never can get a Congress of the United States which will sub- 
jugate any man who has enjoyed legal freedom. 

Mr. Brown. The gentleman says now, as I understood him before, 
that the instinct of self-preservation would prompt the Spanish authori- 
ties to this course. What self-preservation ? Would the island be any 
more preserved to Spain by such an act? Would her possessions, at 
the close of the revolution, be larger because of such a decree ? Would 
the gems in her diadem be more valuable after such a decree than before? 
Would it not be a naked fraud upon the rights of those Avho are con- 
ducting the revolution? Mark you, I am not declaring that I would 
vote to reduce any man to slavery who had once enjoyed a moment of 
freedom. But can freedom be given by such means ? That is the ques- 



CUBA. 823 

tion ; and I call tlie gentleman's attention back to that point. It is one 
woi'thj of consideration. I hope the gentleman will consider it before 
he throws before the country the unqualified remark that the Queen and 
Cortes could thus at a single stroke set free all the negroes on the island. 
Like the gentleman, I never will vote to reduce a free man to bondage. 

Mr. Venable. The gentleman seems to have misapprehended me 
again. If the United States become a party to the revolution, then 
they are buccaneers ; they are wrong, and no one sustains them. If 
individuals of the United States go and produce revolution, they are 
buccaneers, and it w^ould be a struggle in Cuba, to which the United 
States would be no party ; and Spain, being satisfied that the revolution 
was produced for the purpose of annexing to the United States territory 
wrongfully wrested from her, might make that territory valueless to the 
United States, and she would do it. 

Mr. Brown. I am not going to discuss with the honorable gentleman 
how far those who engage in such an enterprise as the liberation of 
Cuba would become buccaneers. The gentleman and myself would diifer 
very widely upon that point. I have already difi'ered from one high in 
authority on the same point. I maintain that the Creoles in the Island 
of Cuba, if they are oppressed, have the same right to take up arms in 
defence of that liberty which they inherited from the Almighty that the 
people of the colonies had. I maintain, further, that the people of the 
United States have the same right to go in aid of the Creole struggling 
for liberty that the French had to come here and aid us when we took 
up arms against the British Crown. Our forefathers were not bucca- 
neers, nor were the French who came to aid us in our glorious struggle 
for freedom buccaneers. If our people choose to go to Cuba, they would 
not thereby become pirates or buccaneers any more, I repeat, than the 
French were when they came in aid of our cause, or than we were when 
our people aided Greece, Poland, the South American States, and Texas. 

Mr. Venable. The terra buccaneers I did not use in any ofiensive 
manner. I expressly guarded my remark in this way : that those indi- 
viduals who chose to go there and seek martyrdom, ought to get it, and 
their quantum of honor; but this government ought not to come in con- 
flict with the rights of any other country. 

Mr. Brown. My friend does not draw a proper distinction between 
an act of the government and the acts of individuals. I do not say that 
the United States should w\ige war upon Spain, or join the liberators 
of Cuba. I am advocating no such policy. I will probably go as far 
as my distinguished friend from North Carolina, in resisting any such 
policj I am speaking of individual assistance — that which France 
gave us in aid of our cause; that which we gave Greece, the South 
American Republics, and Texas ; and I maintain that such individual 
aid does not make those w4io give it, buccaneers, outlaws, or pirates. * 
Nor do such individual acts attaint the government from which the 
individuals come. If it were otherwise, we might even now be seized 
and executed for pirating against Spain in South America, and against 
Mexico in Texas. 

But my friend in North Carolina has advanced another argument 
which is yet more extraordinary, extraordinary I mean as coming from 
him. When I saw my friend standing on the other side of the Ilous'e, 
fillibustering, as I thought, against the United States, surrounded, as he 



324 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

was, by admiring Whigs, I did not know what to think. It seemed to 
me he had taken formal leave of his old State-Rights friends, and gone 
over to the Whigs. He has got into strange company, certainly, and 
advances very strange sentiments. Why, says the gentleman, these 
blacks upon the Island of Cuba will be emancipated by the authority 
of the Spanish government, and how are you to make it slave terri- 
tory again ? I am opposed, says he, to carrying slaves from the slave- 
holding states of the Union to this island, or anywhere else, and I am 
opposed to the extension of the area of slavery. When the gentleman 
and myself stood hand to hand, and shoulder to shoulder, battling for 
what we conceived to be our rights upon the shores of the Pacific, what 
were we battling for, but for a country to which southern slavery could 
be carried? When we resisted the surrounding of the Southern States 
by a cordon of free states, it was, sir, that slavery might not be circum- 
scribed, that it should have room to expand. We desired California 
kept in a condition that the slaves of Southern States could be carried 
there. I confess it here, as I confessed it when the matter was under 
discussion, and if I go for the acquisition of Cuba, or for any other ter- 
ritory in the South, let it be distinctly understood now, and through all 
time, that I go for it because I want an outlet for slavery. I am for 
extending the area of slavery. In such extension, I see safety to the 
South, and no harm to the rest of the Union. There was a day when 
slavery existed in Rhode Island. It left there to go south. I know 
she boasts that she emancipated her slaves, but Rhode Island and Mas- 
sachusetts emancipated the remnant when the great body of them had 
gone south. New York and Pennsylvania were slaveholding states, but 
they sent their slaves South and sold them, and then boasted of making 
their state free. Virginia, Maryland, and the border states are now 
undergoing the same process. Slavery is leaving these states, and going 
further south. The slave population is multiplying with wonderful 
rapidity. We have now three and a half millions of slaves, and in 
thirty years we shall have seven or eight millions. When they have be- 
come profitless or troublesome, we, too, want a South to which we can 
send them. We want it, we cannot do without it, and we mean to have it. 

When you have forced into the cotton-growing states of this Union, 
eight millions of slaves, and have left them no outlet, you will have that 
sort of disaster which you would have if you dammed up the mouth of 
the Mississippi river. There must be an outlet for them. 

Mr, Allison (interrupting). For the honor of the state which I in 
part represent, I would have it go upon the record, that Pennsylvania 
abolished slavery before she had acquired her independence — at the 
earliest moment that she could do so, indeed before she had the power 
fairly. 

Mr. Brown. I know very well that they had a prospective emanci- 
pation law in Pennsylvania ; but I also know that, within the last gene- 
ration, slavery existed in that state. I happen to be the owner of persons 
now, whose immediate ancestors were once slaves in Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Venable. Will my friend from Mississippi permit me to make a 
single remark ? 

Mr. Brown. Oh, certainly. 

• Mr. Venable, I do not wish to speak further upon this subject ; but 
I cannot sit by and hear the positions I have taken misstated, as my 



CUBA. 325 

friend has misstated them, unintentionally no doubt. He says that I 
am opposed to extending the area of slavery. Why, sir, I must have 
expressed myself very obscurely. I am against limiting the area of 
slavery, and the consequence, as I apprehend, of the annexation of Cuba 
Avill be the emancipation of the slaves in that island — making it free 
territory. 

My object is to prevent the contraction, and not to prevent the expan- 
sion, of the area of slavery. I must, indeed, have expressed myself 
very obscurely, or my friend could not have so misunderstood me. My 
proposition was this: that in case of a revolution in Cuba, if the Spanish 
government were satisfied that individuals from the United States, 
whether called buccaneers or invaders — I will call them by any name 
suitable and respectful — were pi-oducing that revolution, the ultimate end 
of which was the annexation of Cuba to the United States, and if the 
Spanish government were also satisfied that that end was to be effected 
because of the profit of slave labor in Cuba, they would be driven to that 
experiment which would be almost fatal to us, viz : the contraction of 
the area of slave territory, by making Cuba free territory, and thereby 
reducing the amount of sympathy in the world towards us and our insti- 
tutions, making us almost the only slaveholding power in the world. 
That was the proposition which I made. I am in favor of extending 
the area of slavery by any just means in our power ; but I take occasion 
to say, that no party ties, no party affiliations, no " Young America," or 
Old America, no persons in power or out of power, can induce me to aid 
in extending it, if it is to be done by oppression or wrong, or by the 
violation of treaty stipulations. 

Mr. Polk (interrupting). I desire to suggest to the gentleman from 
Mississippi [Mr. Brown], that, as it seems the gentleman from North 
Carolina [Mr. Venable] has got into a state of circumstances he had no 
idea of upon this subject, he should allow that gentleman the balance of 
his hour to explain out. [Laughter.] 

The Chairman. The gentleman from Mississippi has yielded the floor 
to the gentleman from North Carolina. The gentleman from Tennessee 
is not in order. 

Mr. Venable. I suppose so, and it would therefore be out of order 
for me to make any reply to the gentleman's suggestion. [Laughter.] 
I say again, that neither party ties, nor party affiliations, nor the opinions 
of friends from whom I should part with reluctance, could ifiduce me to 
support a policy marked by the violation of treaty stipulations, or marked 
with injustice and wrong towards any of the nations of the earth. 

Mr. Brown. Why, Mr. Chairman, my friend from North Carolina 
was never more mistaken in his life, than when he supposed it possible 
for his old State-Rights friends to counsel or advocate any violation of 
treaty stipulations, or of good faith with Spain or Avith any other coun- 
try. I hold that to be quite out of the question. 

Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania. Will the gentleman allow me to ask 
him one question? 

Mr. Brown, Make it very brief, then. 

Mr. Stevens. I will. I understood the gentleman to say that slavery 
existed in Pennsylvania, and that he owned slaves that came from that 
state. Did I understand him rightly ? 

Mr. Brown. You did. 



326 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Mr, Stevens. I should like to know at what period those slaves were 
brought from Pennsylvania ? 

Mr. Brown. That is a question which I am not able to answer. 

Mr. Stevens. By the law of 1780, slavery was abolished in Penn- 
sylvania, allowing those then in bondage to remain so during their lives. 
Some of those even yet survive. That is all the slavery that has existed 
in Pennsjdvania since 1780, and even that was abolished in 1847. But 
if the gentleman holds any slaves who are the descendants of those that 
were brought from Pennsylvania since 1780, I beg leave to inform him 
that they were carried away contrary to law, and are free ; and to sug- 
gest to him whether it would not be well to inquire whether he is not 
ignorantly holding freemen in bondage. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Brown. I usually examine into the question of title before I 
acquire property. Let me get back to the point where I left my friend 
from North Carolina. He now says, and I am glad to hear it, that he 
is in favor of extending the area of slavery. How is this to be done if 
we acquire no more territory ? If slavery is to be extended at all, Cuba 
promises a fairer field than any other country. This the gentleman will 
not take. By a very summary process, he has disposed of Spanish 
slavery there, and he tells us he will not consent to see its place supplied 
by American slavery. It seems to md, therefore, that my friend's 
declaration just now made, is in conflict with the positions taken in his 
speech. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I pass from the details to the general character 
of my friend's speech. He seemed to me to be making an argument, 
the whole drift of which was, as the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Ste- 
phens] has well characterized it, in opposition to the acquisition of Cuba 
under any circumstances. Now, lest I may be misunderstood, I am 
perfectly free to say that I am not going to second any filibustering 
expedition against Cuba or any other part of the world. But, sir, I am 
free to say that I want Cuba, and 1 am willing and anxious that all 
the world should know that I want it. This ought, in my judgment, to 
become our national position. Not that we will take it, but that we want 
it, and that we mean to have it if Spain parts with it. We ought to hold 
out this idea to all the nations of the earth, and if needs be, enforce it 
against all the nations of the earth. We should make no arguments 
against its acquisition. 

I am for no filibustering, in the ordinary acceptation of that term. 
But I will tell you what I am for. I am for this : I am for demanding 
and exacting, at all times, and under all circumstances, a proper respect 
for the flag of this country, and if, in doing that, we should become 
involved in a war with Spain, or with any other country, I am for fight- 
ing it out ; and if, in the general settlement, we can get nothing but 
land, I am willing to take land. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Yenable. So am I. 

Mr. Brown. That far, then, my old friend and myself agree. 

This, sir, suggests a point to which I wish to call the gentleman's 
attention. I want to know v.diether we agree about that also. I think 
the President of the United States, in the late transactions at Havana, 
in which the steamer Crescent City was involved, was entirely wrong. 
I am free to admit to the House, and before the world, that Spain, or 
the Spanish authorities upon the Island of Cuba, have the same right 



CUBA. 327 

to exclude an obnoxious individual from the port of Havana tliat tlie 
authorities of Charleston have to exclude obnoxious individuals from 
that port. But I wish my friend, and those who agree with him, to 
mark this distinction : South Carolina, nor Charleston, by the authority 
of South Carolina, has ever said to a British ship, " You shall not enter 
this port, because you bear a black man upon your deck;" her laws are 
not directed against the flag of Great Britain, but against the obnoxious 
individuals who chance to be on board her ships. I defend that policy 
in South Carolina, and to that extent I will defend it in the authorities 
of Spain. 

But, sir, Spanish authority went beyond this. If the Captain-General 
had simply taken the ground that the obnoxious Mr. Smith should not 
leave the ship's deck, or that he should even be taken from the ship's 
deck and confined during the time the vessel remained in Spanish waters 
before the city of Havana, I do not know, unless there had been some- 
thing offensive in the manner of the transaction, that I should have ob- 
jected to it upon broad national grounds ; as at present advised, I should 
have sustained it. But when the authorities went beyond that, and said 
that an American ship, bearing the American flag, having on board an 
American crew, and American citizens as passengers, and carrying the 
American mails, should not enter the waters of Cuba because the obnox- 
ious Mr. Smith chanced to be on board of her, I think they violated 
good faith, violated the treaty which exists between the two countries — 
a treaty of amity; a treaty that authorized the ships of the one to enter 
the ports of the other on terms of equality with the ships of the most 
favored nations. That is my judgment; and Spain, by her constituted 
authorities, off"ered an insult to our flag by excluding from her port a 
ship that bore it, and for this off"ence, I trust the incoming President 
will even yet demand satisfaction; — that he will not permit it to be 
blurred over as it has been by the retiring President. 

I feel that there is something due to the dignity of this government 
in a case like this, beyond what we have got. When her flag is ex- 
cluded, her citizens driven out of a friendly port, her mail is denied 
admission, and all simply because the Captain-General — a mere tool of 
her Catholic Majesty — chanced to think that Mr, Smith has done some- 
thing or thought something derogatory to Spain, we ought to have some- 
thing more than we have yet had. It was a good time to speak boldly and act 
firmly. Instead of pocketing the insult, as I think we have done, we ought 
to have resented it, and resented it properly. If war had come, why let 
it come ; if Cuba was acquired, why let it be acquired ; and if the people 
of North Carolina wanted to carry their slaves there, let them carry 
them there. If the Spanish authorities thought proper to issue a decree 
emancipating the negroes on the island, and it was deemed to have been 
done in derogation of our rights as a party to the conflict, it would be a 
matter for our determination whether we would respect such a decree. 
All this, however, is very far from the main point. 

Mr. Williams (interrupting), I should like to ask the gentleman a 
single question. The gentleman speaks of the insult offered to our flag. 
What kind of satisfaction does he propose that the incoming administra- 
tion shall demand ? Would anything short of taking the Island of Cuba 
Batisfy him ? 

Mr. Brown. I should prefer that sort of satisfaction to any other. , 



328 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

[Laughter.] But, sir, if that sort of satisfaction was given which is 
ordinarily demanded and given on similar occasions, government ouo-ht 
to accept it ; and if it did not, I would repudiate the action of the govern- 
ment. The Captain-General who denied admission to the Crescent City 
into the port of Havana, ought to have been recalled b}^ Spain on the 
demand of this government, or some other atonement for the offence 
o.ught to have been demanded. The President ought not to have rested 
satisfied until he got it. That is my judgment. If Spain was obstinate, 
and offered us nothing but war, let the consequences be upon her own 
head. Let me not be misunderstood. I say emphatically and distinctly 
that I do not desire to see our government seeking for war, or, as the 
common expression is, "picking a quarrel" with Spain, or any other 
government. I prefer peace Avith that government and with all govern- 
ments. 

One sentiment which the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Vena- 
ble] advanced, I endorse most fully. So long as Spain holds the Island 
of Cuba, and holds it securely, I am content that she shall keep it. But 
I will make no speech against its acquisition. I will make no argument 
against its acquisition. I would have Spain and all the world to under- 
stand distinctly that we always desire the island ; and that if Spain ever 
parts with it, we mean to have it, peaceably if we can, forcibly if we 
must. I would not encourage her to look to other quarters for a pur- 
chaser or an owner, in case she were disposed to part with the island. I 
would not encourage others to hope that they might acquire it on any 
terms short of absolute force. Hence I say, I would make no arguments 
against its acquisition. Arguments should be to prepare the people 
of this country, and of all countries, for its acquisition by the United 
States. I would prepare the minds of our people to make sacrifices for 
its acquisition — sacrifices in money, and, if necessary, sacrifices of 
another character. 

The gentleman from North Carolina has made one of the strongest 
arguments I ever heard against the acquisition of this island, under any 
circumstances. This was indeed too bad. Sir, what must be the effect 
of such a speech upon the public mind ? If it has any effect at all — and 
that it must have an effect, his high position before the House and the 
country assures us — it must be to cause the public mind to pause, to 
hesitate, to doubt the propriety of the acquisition. He says it would 
throw the countrj'- into a commotion ; that it would disturb the public 
mind ; that conflicts between the North and South would be revived. 
What must be the effect of such declarations ? Why, it must be to in- 
duce every man — at heart a patriot, every conservative man — in the 
country, who trusts to these declarations, to resist the acquisition of the 
island at all hazards, and against all persuasion. No man trusting the 
soundness of the gentleman's logic, and filled with his evil forebodings, 
but would resist the acquisition as he would resist a pestilence. The 
gentleman says it will prove a very Pandora's box. 

Mr. Venable. Would my friend be willing to acquire Canada ? 

Mr. Brown. I certainly would not be willing to make as great sacri- 
fices to acquire Canada, as I would to acquire Cuba ; but if there were a 
prospect of getting Canada, I am not prepared to say that I would resist 
the acquisition, and especially if our northern brethren showed them- 
selves liberal in allowing us to get a little more land for the South. But 



I 



NEBRASKA AND ILVNSAS. 329 

as my friend from North Carolina is of a kindly disposition, I will ask 
liim the same question : would he go for acquiring Canada ? 

Mr. Vexable. I would not. 

Mr. Brown. I said when I rose, that I did not design to make a 
speech upon this subject. The gentleman from North Carolina had 
expressed opinions so foreign to my own, and so contrary to what I 
deem to be the interest of the South, and of the whole country, I felt it 
due to myself, considering my party relations with that gentleman, to 
say at once, that I do not concur in the views he expressed. 

Mr. Venable. Will my friend permit me to ask one additional 
question ? 

Mr. Brown. Certainly. 

Mr. Venable. I desire to know whether under any circumstances, 
the gentleman would be willing to annex Cuba as a free state, if slavery 
did not exist there? " 

Mr. Brown. I do not think that I Avould readily consent to it, and ^ 
the gentleman might have gathered as much from my remarks before. 
I said I wanted to acquire this territory as an outlet for slavery, as a 
means of extending the area of slavery. I will do nothing under a dis- 
guise. I will practise no fraud or deception upon anybody, personally 
or politically. I do not say that I would not be in favor of the annexa- 
tion of Cuba under any circumstances ; but I confess that a vast amount 
of my zeal and enthusiasm would ooze out very suddenly, if I knew it 
was coming to us as a free state. I want it ; and I want it as a slave 
state, and as an outlet for slavery. In a military, and in a commercial 
point of view, its acquisition would be vastly desirable, even as a free 
state. But I will not longer detain the committee. 



NEBRASKA AND KANSAS. 

In the Senate of the United States, February 24, 1854, the Senate having under 
consideration the bill to organize the territories of Nebraska and Kansas, Mr. 
Brown said : — 

Mr. President : It has been my determination, from the beginning 
of this discussion, not to participate in it to any considerable extent, 
and I am not now about to depart from that determination. I will 
occupy the floor but a few minutes ; and senators wdio desire to speak 
may be assured that they will have an opportunity of doing so this 
evening, if they choose. 

There are one or two points in the bill on which I will present my 
views briefly ; and there are two or three topics involved incidentally in 
the debate to w^hich I will address a remark or two, and then I shall 
have done. 

The bill proposes to annul, or, in stronger phrase, to repeal, the Mis- 
souri compromise ; and to this extent it meets my cordial approbation. 

I am not the advocate of this repeal because of any confident ex- 
pectation that slavery is ever to find a resting place in these territories. 



330 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Slavery may or may not go there. The inclination of my mind is that 
it never will. But this is a topic not to be discussed here, and therefore 
I pass it by without further remark. 

The Missouri compromise ought to be annulled or repealed, because 
it has been, from the beginning, without authority under the Constitu- 
tion. For more than thirty years this legislation has stood upon the 
statute-book, a blot upon its justice, and a mockery of the Constitution 
which it violates. 

All the arguments against the constitutionality of the Wilmot proviso 
stand with equal force against the constitutionality of the Missouri com- 
promise. It is needless for me to argue that, if Congress had no power 
under the Constitution to exclude slavery from the territories acquired 
from Mexico, it had none to exclude it from those acquired from France ; 
or, to state the proposition a little different, if Congress has no power 
to establish an arbitrary line and assert its constitutional power over 
slavery on one side of it, it has none to establish it and assert its power 
on the other side. 

If Congress had the power in 1820 to exclude slavery from all the 
territory north of 36° 30', it had the same power in 1850 to exclude it 
from all the territory south of that line. And, per contra, if it did not 
have the power to exclude it south of the line in 1850, then it did not 
have the power in 1820 to exclude it north of the line. 

The venerable senator from Michigan [Mr. Cass] deserves great credit 
for his masterly effort to correct a wide-spread, and, at the North, almost 
universal error, on this point. Thousands I know there are who date 
their convictions on this subject from the delivery of the great speech 
of that senator, in which he reviewed with so much power the arguments 
to sustain the proviso. I do the senator no more than justice, Avhen I 
say his arguments have never been answered — like fine gold, they have 
grown brighter as they have been rubbed. 

As a friend of the Constitution, I thank the senator for his efforts in 
this behalf. He proved the unconstitutionality of the proviso ; and in 
doing that, he established beyond dispute the unconstitutionality of the 
Missouri compromise* For, I repeat, Congress had no more power to 
exclude slavery north of 36° 30' in 1820 than it had to exclude it south 
of that line in 1850. 

But it has been said that the Missouri compromise is a contract — the 
eloquent senator from Massachusetts used the stronger term — he called 
it a compact; and on this ground, he and others have undertaken to 
defend it. It was neither the one thing nor the other. It was not a 
contract, nor was it a compact. If it was a contract, who were the par- 
ties to it ? To make a valid contract, there must be parties able to 
contract, willing to contract, and they must actually have contracted. 
I must go further, and say, there must be something given on one side, 
and something received on the other. In all, every one of these essen- 
tials, the transaction before us is deficient. I should undertake to main- 
tain by irrefragable proof, if I had engaged to discuss this question 
thoroughly, first, that there were no contracting parties ; second, that 
at least one of those whom you claim as a party had no will to contract, 
and did not contract ; and third, that no consideration passed from one 
party to the other, whereby the contract, if made, was rendered binding. 

Shall it be contended, further, that Missouri was a party to this pre- 



NEBRASKA AND KiiNSAS. 331 

tended contract ? It has already been said Missouri was admitted into 
the Union as a slave state, on condition that slavery should be for ever 
prohibited north of 36° 30'; and the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Sumner] declared with great bitterness that the South, with the con- 
sideration in her pocket, now comes forward to repudiate the contract. 
Sir, had not Missouri the right, the constitutional right, to come into the 
Union with or without slavery, as she, in her own written constitution, 
should prescribe ? I have thought that even rampant fanaticism did 
not deny this. Then how could you, in derogation of her rights under 
the Constitution, demand of Missouri a price for her admission into the 
Union ? 

But, sir, allowing that Missouri undertook to buy her way into the 
Union — an admission that can only be made for the sake of the argument 
— and that for this purpose she bargained for the exclusion of slavery in 
perpetuity from all territory north of 36° 30', what does it amount to ? 
Nothing; absolutely nothing. Missouri had jurisdiction within her 
limits, and not one inch beyond. She had no right to buy an advan- 
tage or a privilege for herself by surrendering that which did not belong 
to her. As well mio;ht the tenant or rio;htful owner of a house bargain 
with a robber, that if he would let him alone, he might plunder his 
neighbors with impunity. If he bought his own peace, well ; but cer- 
tainly he could impose no obligation on his neighbors to submit to the 
plundering. 

If we put this transaction on the basis of contract between the North 
and the South, it is not more capable of defence. Here you have to 
create parties, ideal parties, before you commence the bargain. To say 
this is a contract between the North and the South, is to set up in the 
imagination things that do not exist in fact. There is no separate North, 
no separate South — has not been, and I hope never will be. We are 
but one, and it takes two to make a contract. If we had a Northern 
Union and a Southern Union, the two might contract. But, as we are 
but one, the first great essential to a binding contract is wanting, to wit : 
parties capable of contracting. 

I do not know that I can better conclude what I have to say on this 
point than by introducing an extract from a speech delivered by myself 
on this subject in the House, June 3, 1848. It will be found at page 
645, Appendix to the Congressional Globe of that year. I said : — 

" We shall be told, that by the act of March 6, 1820, and the several succeeding 
acts admitting Missouri into the Union, commonly called the Missouri compromise, 
the power in Congress to a limited extent, to exclude slavery from a territory, was 
conceded. The argument is neither just nor sound ; but its introduction here gives 
me an opportunity, which I eagerly embrace, of expressing my opinions of that com- 
promise. It has been the theme of many eloquent harangues ; and of all the thousand 
orators who have thrown garlands on the brow of its great author, or strewn his 
pathwa}^ with richest flowers, none have apostrophized more eloquently than those 
whose theme has been this far-famed Missouri compromise." 

You will observe that in this speech I fell into a very common error, 
or, at least, what is now claimed to be an error, of attributing the author- 
ship of the Missouri compromise to Mr. Clay. I proceeded : — 

" But, notwithstanding this, it stands out ' a fungus, an excrescence, a political 
monstrosity.' It was the first, greatest, and most fatal error in our legislation on the 
subject of slaverj'. It violated at once the rights of one-half the Union, and flagrantly 
outraged the Federal Constitution. It undertook to abrogate the constitutional privi- 



332 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

leges of one-half of the states, and, -without any adequate or sufficient consideration, 
to surrender the rights of every slaveholder in the Union. The compromise has been 
called a contract. But a contract, to be binding, must be mutual in its obligations; 
there must be something given on one side, and something received on the other. 
By this compromise — this misnamed contract — the slave states gave up their right 
of settlement north of the parallel 36° 30^; but the non-slaveholding states did not 
surrender their right to settle south of that line. The free states have all the rights 
they ever had. The South gave up everything, and received nothing. North of 
30° 30^ no slaveholder dare go with his slaves ; south every northern man may settle 
with whatever chattels he possesses. The compromise is wanting in all the elements 
of mutuality which render a compact binding, and is therefore void. This Thirtieth 
Congress has no right to surrender, by gift or barter, the political rights of one-half 
of the Confederacy, or even one state of the Union ; and yet this Congress has all the 
constitutional powers that belonged to the Sixteenth Congress, which enacted the 
compromise." 

I pass from this subject to tbe consideration of the amendment offered 
by the mover of the bill [Mr. Douglas], and now, by the vote of the 
Senate, become a part of the bill itself. The phraseology is not such as 
I would have chosen, and yet, having scrutinized it, I am willing to 
sanction it ; indeed, I have sanctioned it by my vote. If it had suited 
the purposes of others to allow it to stand without comment, it would 
have suited mine. But I will not sit still, and allow an interpretation to 
be given to words that have received the sanction of my vote, altogether 
at variance with what I intended when I gave the vote. From day to 
day we have heard senators, in terms more or less distinct, declare, 
without limitation, that this bill gives the people of the territories the 
right to exclude slavery. In plain English, that it recognises the doc- 
trine of "squatter sovereignty," as this new theory has been termed. 
I do not think so, and if I did, I would withhold from the bill the sanc- 
tion of my vote. I utterly deny and repudiate this whole doctrine of 
squatter sovereignty. But, before I proceed to an examination of it, I 
must pause to consider another feature embodied in the amendment pro- 
posed by the honorable senator, the mover of this bill. 

The amendment declares that the act of 1820, commonly ca]}ed the 
Missouri compromise, is inconsistent with the legislation of 1850, known 
as the compromise of that year ; and is, therefore, declared inoperative 
and void. If I did not know the astuteness of the senator who drew 
up this amendment [Mr. Douglas], and how unlikely he Avould be to I'un 
into such an error, 1 should think there was an inaccuracy in deducing 
the conclusion that the legislation of 1820, in reference to one territory, 
is inoperative and void, because it is inconsistent with the legislation of 
• 1850, in reference to another territory. It is very certain that the 
legislation of 1820, as regards the territory north of 86° 30', was incon- 
sistent with the same legislation, as regards the territory south, and yet 
both stood, and have continued to stand, for thirty years and more. It 
is equally certain, that if Congress has the power to exclude slavery 
from the territories, and the power is simply permissive, and not manda- 
tory (as it certainly is not), under the Constitution, then Congress may 
exercise it in one place, and forbear its exercise in another ; and the 
failure to exercise it in Nebraska, for example, would not render inope- 
rative and void its exercise in Kansas. 

If the act of 1820, that excluded slavery from all the territory north 
of 36° 30', was constitutional, it may stand, and it is logically inaccurate 
to say that it becomes inoperative and void simply because the legislation 



NEBRASKA AND KANSAS. 333 

of 1850 fivileJ to exclude slavery south of that lino. But if, on the 
other hand, the act of 1820 was unconstitutional, and those of 1850 
brought back the government to its true constitutional position, then it 
would be logically correct to say that the act of 1820 (being unconstitu- 
tional) is inconsistent with the acts of 1850 (that have restored the 
government to its true constitutional position), and, therefore, the act 
of 1820 is inoperative and void. Inoperative and void, not because of 
its admitting or excluding slavery, but inoperative and void because it 
is inconsistent with the restoration of the government to its rightful 
constitutional position. 

I take it for granted, Mr. President, that the able and learned senator 
[Mr. Douglas] meant what the language of his amendment implies, to 
wit : that the legislation of 1850 settled the great constitutional principle 
that Congress could not exclude slavery from a territory ; and that 
inasmuch as the act of 1820 undertook to do that thing, it is in conflict 
with a great constitutional principle, and therefore, for that reason, it 
is inoperative and void. 

I may be mistaken in my reasoning — I may be mistaken in what is 
meant by the mover of this amendment. But there is one thing in which 
I am not mistaken — the amendment declares the Missouri compromise 
inoperative and void. This is as it should be. It squares exactly with 
my notions long since expressed of the constitutional obligations of the 
government, and I will not quarrel with a good act, even though a bad 
reason may be given for its performance. 

I will not detain the Senate on points of so little practical importance 
as this. The conclusion at which we arrive covers the practical issue, 
effects the practical result, and whether we reach that conclusion by a 
sound course of reasoning is a thing of "little consequence to our con- 
stituents. I voted for the amendment, believing that the premises jus- 
tified the conclusions. But, if I had thought otherwise, I should have 
voted as I did. The declaration that the Missouri compromise is hence- 
forth to become inoperative and void, commends the measure to my warm 
and cordial support. 

I pass to the consideration of another point, and in doing so I respect- 
fully invoke the attention of the distinguished senator from Michigan 
[Mr. Cass]. That senator is the acknowledged author of the doctrine 
known in common political parlance as squatter sovereignty. From this 
doctrine I have always dissented, and I dissent from it to-day. Accus- 
tomed, as I have long been, to regard with reverence whatever emanates 
from that distinguished and venerable senator, and feeling, at all times, 
a painful reluctance to assume a position at variance with him, I have, 
nevertheless, found myself constrained, after mature investigation, to 
conclude that on this point he is wrong. 

From what source, let me ask the senator, does he derive the power, 
or the right of the people of a territory, to exclude slavery ? Congress 
does not confer the power — that is certain. The senator has made more 
arguments — and better ones — than any living statesman to prove that 
Congress has no right or power, under the Constitution, to exclude 
slavery from a territory ; and I shall not insult the good sense of the 
Senate, or of the country, by proving, that if Congress does not itself 
possess this power, it cannot confer it on another. Congress cannot 
give what it has not got. Congress cannot reverse the whole order of 



334 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

nature, and make the creature greater than the creator. When the 
senator proved that Congress had no power over slavery in the terri- 
tories, he proved, necessarily, that Congress could not confer this power 
on a territorial legislature — a legislature which is, at best, but a thing 
of our creation — nor yet upon the people of a territory ; for, after all, 
these people have no existence as a political organization but by our act. 

If the power is not conferred by Congress, whence do you derive it ? 
The senator from Michigan has left us in no doubt as to the quarter 
from which he derives it. On a former occasion, and in a speech not 
now before me, but which I have in my mind's eye, the senator said he 
derived the power from Almighty God. 

Mr. Cass. I do not wish to interrupt the senator at all, because it is 
a matter of no sort of consequence, but I wish to say to him that I did 
not derive that power from Almighty God. I was asked whence I 
derived the power of government in the people ? and I answered that 
the right of government, not the right to exclude slavery, was derived 
from Almighty God. 

Mr. Brown. I suppose when the senator said the right of govern- 
ment, without imposing a limitation, he meant, of course, to include the 
right to exclude slavery ? 

Mr. Cass. Of course. 

Mr. Brown. I so understood the senator. I understood him as 
deriving the power of self-government for the people directly from Hea- 
ven ; and as the senator imposed no limitation or restriction on the 
power, I inferred, of course, that he meant to include the right over 
slavery, and the senator says I was correct. I was justified, therefore, 
in saying that the senator had derived this power from God. Not this 
single power, and it alone, but this along with other powers. 

Now, sir, if this be so, the conduct of this government has been most 
singular; and if the senator will allow me, I will say, with the most 
perfect respect, that his own personal conduct needs explanation. If I 
am not mistaken in the antecedents of the senator, some sixteen or 
twenty years of his now protracted and honorable life have been spent 
in the government of one of these territories. lie was commissioned to 
do so, not by Heaven, but by the President of the United States. The 
people whom he governed with so much ability, and with such acknow- 
ledged advantage to them, were never consulted as to whether he should 
be their governor. The President commissioned him, and that was the 
end of it. All the people had to do was to receive him and to respect 
him as their governor. When the senator comes to reply, I shall be 
glad to learn from him how he justifies himself in taking a man's com- 
mission to rule over a people who have authority direct from God him- 
self to govern themselves ? It seems to me, without explanation, that 
the senator has stood, according to his own theory, very much like an 
usurper ; and if I had not the greatest possible veneration and respect 
for the senator, I would say an usurper who 'had impiously nterposed 
to wrest from a people the greatest and best gift of Heaven — the right 
of self-government. 

If, as is contended, the people of a territory are gifted from Heaven 
with the right of self-government, by what authority do you habitually 
send men to rule over them? You appoint their governors, and other 
executive officers, and remove them at pleasure. You appoint judges to 
expound their laws, and even these are not exempt from the power of re- 



NEBRASKA AND KANSAS. 335 

moval. True, you allow tliem, as a matter of special grace, to elect 
members of their legislative council. But then, to show the omnipotence 
of your power, you require them to send up their laws for approval here, 
and none are binding until approved by Congress. This very bill now 
under discussion authorizes the President to appoint governors, secreta- 
ries, judges, marshals, &c., for these territories ; and it is very explicit 
in providing that all laws passed by the territorial legislature shall 
undergo the revision of Congress before they are binding. It does seem 
to me, Mr. President, if these people have been specially commissioned 
from Heaven to govern themselves, we are guilty of an impious usurpa- 
tion, and become the rankest despots, when we exercise authority like ' 
this. I shall be glad to know of the senator how we are to justify our- 
selves in thus assuming and exercising control over a people whom God 
has authorized to govern themselves ? For be it remembered, the senator 
has asserted that the people had the right of self-government unlimited 
and complete ; and when I so stated his position, as in his judgment to 
induce the impression, that he had asserted their power over slavery 
alone, he corrected me, and said his assertion was the right of self- 
government — government as to everything ; slavery, of course, included. 

What I contend for is, that if the people have the right of self-govern- 
ment, as contended for by the senator from Michigan, then you have no 
ri"-ht to appoint officers to rule over them, nor exact that they shnll send 
up their laws for your approval. And if they have not the sovereignty 
which entitles them to appoint their own officers, and to pass their own 
laws, independent of your supervision and dictation, then they have not 
that higher degree of sovereignty which entitles them to say what shall, * 
and what shall not be property in a territory inhabited by them, and 
belonging to the states of this Union. 

Whatever the senator's opinions may be, and I do not question his 
sincerity, the practical results of his action are these : The people, with 
all their Heaven-born sovereignty, have no right of self-government — 
of free and uncontrolled self-government — until they come to slavery, 
and then their power is as boundless as the universe, and as unlimited 
as God can make it. You appoint their officers without their approval, 
and remove them without their consent. You exercise the utmost vigi- 
lance over their legislation until it comes to slavery, and then you grant 
them the largest liberty. Why is this ? Either it proceeds from a 
timidity that shrinks from a manly responsibility on this subject, which 
I cannot suspect, and therefore will not charge ; or else from a con- 
viction that slavery is an institution accursed of Heaven ; and that while ^ 
your love for the Union will not allow you to stamp on it the seal of 
Heaven's vengeance, you will withdraw from it all protection, and leave 
it to the tender mercies of all whose passions or prejudices may lead 
them to make war upon it. 

Sir, I have no fellowship with that sickly sentimentality that speaks 
of slavery as a great moral evil, and is constantly praying for some safe ' 
and peaceful mode of getting rid of it. I believe that slavery is of 
divine origin, and that it is a great moral, social, and political blessing 
— a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master. I am not going 
to elaborate this idea ; it is of itself a theme for half a dozen speeches. 
But I undertake to say, that nowhere, in all Christendom, is there a 
higher degree of morality than in the slaveholding states. In this 



336 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

respect the slaveholding states challenge a comparison with their boast- 
ful sisters of freedom. I risk nothing in saying that slavery operates as 
a check upon crime. I will tell you why. It equalizes white men, puts 

. them on a level with one another, and represses thereby many of the 
evil passions which rise up and drive men to madness in communities 
where white men are not equal. 

Nowhere in this broad Union but in the slaveholding states is there a 
living, breathing exemplification of the beautiful sentiment, that all men 
are equal. In the South all men are equal. I mean, of course, white 

• men ; negroes are not men, within the meaning of the Declaration. If 
they were, Madison, and Jefferson, and Washington, all of whom lived 
and died slaveholders, never could have made it, for they never regarded 
negroes as their equals, in any respect. But men, white men, the kind 

. of men spoken of in the Declaration of Independence, are equal in the 
South, and they are so nowhere else. It is slavery that makes them so. 
In the South we have but one standard of social merit, and that is 
integrity. Poverty is no crime, and labor is honorable. The poorest 
laborer, if he has preserved an unsullied reputation, is on a social level 
with all his fellows. The wives and daughters of our mechanics and the 

. laboring men stand not an inch lower in the social scale than the wives 
and daughters of our governors, secretaries, and judges. It is not 
always so with you, and I will tell you why. The line that separates 
menial from honorable labor with you is not marked by a caste or dis- 
tinct color, as it is with us. In the South, as in the North, all the 
mechanic arts are treated as honorable, and they are not the less so 
because sometimes practised by blacks. It may surprise our northern 
friends, but all the South will attest its truth, that nothing is more com- 
mon in the South than to see the master and his slave working together 
at the same trade. And the man who would breathe a suspicion that the 
master had sunk one hair's breadth in the social scale in consequence of 
this kind of contact would, by general consent, be written down an ass. 
But there are certain menial employments which belong exclusively 
to the -negro — these furnish a field of labor that the white man never 
invades, or if he does, he is not tempted there by gain. Why, sir, it 
would take you longer to find a white man, in my state, who would hire 

V himself out as a boot-black, or a white woman who Avould go to service 
as a chambermaid, than it took Captain Cook to sail around the world. 
For myself, in thirty years, I have never found a single one. 

Would any man take his boot-black, would any lady take her cham- 
bermaid into companionship ? We do not in the South, for they are 
always negroes ; mechanics, overseers, and honest laborers, of every 
kind, are taken into companionship, and treated, in all respects, as 
equals. It is their right, and no one thinks of denying it. 

I do not say that it is disreputable for white men and white women to 
go out to service and to perform even these lower grades of labor. But 
I say that with you, as with us, they lose their position in the social 
scale when they do it. With you it must be done by whites, and there- 
fore the whites lose position ; with us this menial labor is performed by 
negroes, and the equality among the whites is preserved. 

If the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner] wants to see a 
specimen of that equality spoken of by Jefferson, in the Declaration of 
Independence, and so much lauded by himself the other day, let me 



NEBRASKA AND KANSAS. 337 

advise him to come to Mississippi. We will there show him what he has 
never seen in Massachusetts, and what he never will see in a free state 
— a whole community standing on a perfect level, and not one of them 
the tithe of a hair's breadth higher in the social scale than another. 
This is equality ; this is social equality — the equality to which all men 
were born, and which no man loses in a slave state but by dishonesty or 
immorality of some sort. 

"T^ will not pause to consider the black man's condition in this country 
as contrasted with that of his fellows in his native home. There is 
enough in it to awaken our thoughts, and cause us seriously to inquire 
whether it is not possible, and even probable, that God, in his provi- 
dence, has brought the Africans from amidst the barbarism and cannibal- 
ism of their native jungle, and placed their feet on these happy shores, 
where, under the benign influence of our laws, they may learn morality • 
and Christianity ; and, in Heaven's own good time, return to lift the 
pall of darkness and death that has rested so long on their wretched 
country ? 

But enough of this. I did not intend to have spoken of the negro, 
or of his influence on the social condition of our country. We who own 
slaves are satisfied w^ith our condition in every respect ; and those who 
do not own them, we may hope, will in no way be made accountable for^ 
the sin we commit in holding them in bondage. 

Asking pardon for this digression,! come back, Mr. President, to the 
subject under discussion : The right of the people of a territory to ex- 
clude slavery : or, in other words, to declare that not to be property in 
a territory belonging to all the states, which is recognised as property 
by the United States, and held as property in fifteen states of this 
Union. It must be admitted that the power which makes such a declara- 
tion, and maintains it, is invested with the very highest attributes of 
sovereignty — a sovereignty wdiich the government has not dared to ex- 
ercise in the territories acquired from Mexico. 

The senator from Michigan, if I understand him, asserts the sover- 
eignty of the people in the territories over property in the territories. 
I should like to know" at what time this sovereignty attaches ; does it go 
with the first man who enters the territory, or must a hundred, or two 
hundred, or a thousand, have entered before this sovereignty attaches ? 
This is an important point ; and I shall be glad to have the senator's 
views on it. We, who maintain the sovereignty df the states, have no 
difficulty in fixing the time when the sovereignty attaches. It attaches, 
as we think, at the moment when the territory enters the Union as a 
state. Up to this time it resides in the states, or with the people of the 
states. With us there is no such thing as sovereignty in a territory. A , 
territory is subordinate ; she has no voice here, and no vote in the other 
branch of Congress. She is not equal with the states. But, on the in- 
stant of her entry into the Union, she becomes equal — the sovereignty 
passes — and, within her limits, she may do whatever Virginia or Massa- 
chusetts may do within their limits. 

To admit the sovereignty of a territory is to admit the existence of a 
state out of the Union. A state or sovereignty in the Union cannot 
treat with any foreign power. The Constitution forbids it. But a state 
or sovereignty out of the Union may treat ; it may form alliances, and, 
if it choose, not only remain out of the Union, but attach itself to any 
22 



83S ALBERT G. BROWN. 

foreign power. Suppose tlie " sovereign territory " of Oregon should 
take a fancy to attach itself to Great Britain, I should like to know 
how my friend from Michigan would prevent it ? It is useless to say 
this will not happen. The question as to whether it will or will not 
happen does not affect the question of right. And besides, this is an 
age of progress, and we know not what a day may bring forth. 

If it suits the purposes of the senator to answer, I should like to 
know to Avhat point he carries his doctrine ? Does he believe that the 
people of a territory, even before the erection of a territorial govern- 
ment, such as we are now making for Kansas and Nebraska, have the 
right to exclude slavery ? 

Mr. Cass. Does the senator wish me to explain ? 
Mr. Brown. I should like an answer now on the single point. 
Mr. Cass. I will answer the senator in a very few words. I believe 
that Congress, from the relation existing between them and the people 
of the territories, and the necessity arising from that relation, have a 
right to organize a government in a territory ; but I also believe that if 
we neglect this duty, as we did in the case of California, the laws of " 
God give the community a right to establish a government for them- 
selves. 

Mr. Brown. The senator's answer does not exactly meet my ques- 
tion, unless he means that a government thus established may exclude 
slavery. If he does I am answered, and I dissent from the answer. 

I admit that any people left without a government may make a 
rrovernment for themselves ; that is to say, they may make such municipal 
regulations for the protection and security of life, liberty, and propert}^ 
as they may think best. But these regulations must be consistent with 
the rights of the sovereign. The senator is correct when he says the 
right to make this sort of government arises out of the necessity of the 
case. But the right must not be carried further than may be justified 
by the necessity that brought it into being. Whatever is necessary to 
the protection of the people in their persons and property maybe done. 
And now w^ill the senator, or any one else, undertake to show that the 
exclusion of slavery is at all necessary to the security of either persons 
or property in a territory ? No one will pretend that it is. Its exclu- 
sion is not necessary to the existence of a temporary government ; and 
being inconsistent with the rights of the sovereign, to wit, the states of 
the Union, it cannot be excluded by the usurpation of a power not 
granted by the Constitution, or justified by the tyrant's plea of 
necessity. 

The temporary government thus established, and resting solely on 
necessity, can exist only at the pleasure of the sovereign. When he 
appears and asserts his authority this temporary government must pass 
away. 

Suppose fifty Americans — and I care not if the number be more or 
less — are left on an island belonging to Great Britain, uninhabited, and 
consequently without an existing government. That they may set up a 
government for themselves no one will deny. They may fashion it after 
our own, if they choose. But if, at the end of a few years, the agents 
of the Queen appear to assert the authority of the crown — will any one 
pretend that our Americans can maintain their jurisdiction ; must not 
their authority yield at once to the superior authority of the sovereign? 



NEBRASKA AND KANSAS. 339 

And so, I apprehend, it will be if possession is taken of territory 
belonging to these states. If it is without a government, those taking 
possession may make a government ; but when the states appear by 
their proper agents to assert their authority, the provisional government 
must give way. It can no more be maintained that possession may be 
taken of territory belonging to these states, and the citizens of the 
state excluded with their property, than it can be maintained that an 
island belonging to Britain may be seized, and the Queen's subjects with 
their property excluded. If the senator has only meant to assert the 
power of a people left without a government to make one for themselves 
commensurate with their necessities, I concur with him fully. But if he 
goes further than this, and asserts a sovereignty that rises above the 
authority of Congress, and puts the states, the rightful owners of the 
soil, at defiance, then I dissent. To this I never can agree. 

The period is well fixed in my mind, at which the right to exclude 
slavery from a territory attaches. It is when the territory comes to 
form a state constitution for herself — and this she may not do, the pre- 
cedents to the contrary notwithstanding, until she has the requisite 
population. ^ The Constitution has very wisely provided that each state 
shall be entitled to one member of Congress ; that representation shall 
be apportioned among the states according to population ; and to ascertain 
the population, it has provided for taking a census. Now, to admit a 
state without the requisite population to entitle her to a member, is a 
fraud upon the rights of other states, for it diminishes their political 
power ; and to guess at the number of inhabitants, is a fraud on the 
Constitution, for the Constitution has directed you to take a census. 

A state coming into the Union in a proper way has the right to come 
in with or without slavery, as she chooses. This I admit, and I admit 
nothing more. Perhaps a very rigid adherence to the rights of all 
parties would require a state to be in the Union, and fully invested 
with sovereignty, before she undertook to exercise so important a power 
as the exclusion of slavery. As an original proposition, I would main- 
tain this doctrine. But the point seems to have been yielded, and I will 
not insist on it now. 

To show how well I am sustained in the views I have so imperfectly 
expressed, I will read a few short extract from the speeches of Mr. Cal- 
houn and one or two others on the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. On 
the first of June, 1848, Mr. Calhoun said : — 

"There are three questions involved in this entangled aifair. The first is the 
power of Congress to legislate upon this subject so as to prevent the slavehoMing 
portion of the Union from emigrating with their property to any territory. The nex'c 
question is the right of the inhabitants of a territory to make a laio excluding the riti- 
zens of these states from emigrating thither with their property, and the third is the 
power of Congress to vest the people of a territory with that right." * * 

"THE TERRITORY IS OPEN TO ALL THE CITIZENS OF THE UnITED StATES, AND IT MUST 
REMAIN OPEN, AND CANNOT BE CLOSED BUT BY THE PEOPLE OF THE TERRITORY V HEN 

THEY COME TO FORM THEIR OWN CONSTITUTION, and then they can do as they please." 

On the 27th of June, 1848, Mr. Calhoun spoke at length on this sub- 
ject. _ I read from his speech, at page 871 of the Appendix to the Con- 
gressional Globe. Having disposed of the power of Congress over the 
subject, he said : — 

" I now go one step further, and propose to fthow that neither the inhabitants of 



IJ40 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the territories nor their legislatures, have any such ri^ht. If the territories belong 
to the United States, if the ownership, dominion, and sovereignty over them be in the 
states of the Union, then neither the inhabitants of the territories nor their legisla- 
tures can exercise any power but what is subordinate to them." -x- * * 
" But if the reverse be true, if the dominion and sovereignty over the territories be 
in the inhabitants, * * * they might exclude whom they pleased, and 
what they pleased. But in that case, they would cease to be territories of the United 
States the moment we acquired them and permitted them to be inhabited. The first 
half dozen of squatters would become the sovereigns, with full dominion and sover- 
eignty over them." 

I forbear to read Mr. Calhoun's argument. It was like all that came 
from him, full, complete, lucid, and convincing. 

On the 12th of July, 1848, the present Secretary of War, then a 
member of this body, spoke at length on the territorial question. I read 
from his speech, as I find it recorded at pages 908, 909, and 910 of the 
Globe's Appendix for that year : — 

" The various modes which have been proposed to exclude slaveholders from enter- 
ing territory of the United States with their property may be referred to three 
sources of power: the federal government, the territorial inhabitants, and the law 
of the land anterior to its acquisition by the United States." 

After discussing at length the power of the federal government over 
slavery in the territories, and concluding that no authority for its exclu- 
sion was lodged in Congress, the speaker continued : — 

" Many of the reasons and principles presented to establish the absence of power 
in the federal government to exclude slavery from territory belonging to the United 
States, bear with like force against the second class of opinions — that the power rests 
in the territorial inhabitants. In the unwearied search of those who, from the 
foundation of our government, have sought in every quarter for the fountains of 
power by which the sovereignty of the states might be submerged, this, until 
recently, remained undiscovered." 

The senator was neither unjust nor illiberal towards the early settlers 
in a territory. Hear him : — 

" To the citizen who presses beyond the limits of civilization to open up to culti- 
vation and settlement the forest domain of the United vStates, I have always been will- 
ing to extend protection and such peculiar advantages over other joint owners of the 
ctimmon stock as are due to the services he has thus rendered to the common interests. 
But the civil rights, the political principles of our government, are not to be trans- 
ferred to those who shall be hrst in the race to reach newly acquired possessions, or 
who shall by accident be found upon them." 

To show the conclusion reached by the speaker, I read his own 
remarks : — 

'• I have thus presented my view of the three sources from which it is claimed 
to draw the power to prohibit slavery in territory of the United States. From the 
considerations presented, my conclusion is, that it cannot properly be done in either 
of the modes proposed : that, not being among the delegated powers of the federal 
government, or necessary to the exercise of any of its grants, Congress cannot pass a 
law for that purpose ; that the territorial government is subordinate to the federal 
government, from Avhich it derives its authority and support, and that neither 
s-eparately nor united can they invade the undelegated sovereignty of the states over 
tlieir territory." 

To fortify my own position, I might multiply authorities like these 
almost indefinitely. It may be sufficient to say, that so far as I know, 
no strict constructionist in the South has ever yielded the point that the 
inhabitants of a territory could exclude slavery. All have stood upon 



NEBRASKA AND KANSAS. 341 

the common ground that the people, when thej come to form a state 
constitution, being duly entitled by their numbers and position in the 
government to make such an instrument, may, if they think proper, ex- 
clude slavery, and then its exclusion forms no just ground of complaint. 
Justice, Mr. President, requires that I should, at this point, recur to a 
speech delivered by myself in the House of Representatives, on the 3d 
of June, 1848. It will be found at page 648 of the Appendix to the 
Globe. I then said: — 

"The people hold the territories as tenants in common, and all, or any part of them, 
may enter these territories from any and all parts of the United States, and take 
with them their property. They may enact laws for their personal protection and 
the preservation of their property ; but they cannot exclude others who come after 
them from the possession and enjoyment of equal rights with themselves. 

The first who enter a territory cannot assume a sovereignty which belongs to all. 
The specific exercise of sovereignty over the question of slavery is held in abeyance 
until the people of the territory ask admission into the Union as a state, according 
to the Constitution ; and being admitted, the state becomes sovereign within her 
limits." 

I Avill not detain the Senate with a reproduction of arguments em- 
ployed by me at that time. My consistency is vindicated in what I have 
read. I summed up as follows : — 

" The conclusion, Mr. Chairman, to which my own mind has arrived, on the 
several points involved, are briefly these : That every citizen of the United States 
may go to the territories and take with him his property, be it slaves, or any other 
description of property. That neither the United States Congress nor territorial 
legislature has any povrer or authority to exclude him ; and that the power of legis- 
lation, by whomsoever exercised in the territories, whether by Congress or the terri- 
torial legislature, must be exerted for the equal benefit of all — for the southern slave- 
holder no less than for the northern dealer in dry goods." 

It will be seen, Mr. President, that I treated the subject then as I do 
now. I asserted then, as I assert to-day, that whoever legislates for the 
territories, whether it be Congress or a territorial legislature, is as much 
bound to give protection to my property as to the property of any one 
else. If the Constitution is to be observed, and our rights under it are 
equal, I want to know by what other rule we can be governed ? Shall 
the senator from Ohio [Mr. Wade], who lives in a country where the 
people invest most of their gain in live-stock, take his peculiar kind of 
property into the territory of Nebraska, and then turn upon me and 
say. You shall not take your property there ? Shall he do this simply 
because I chance to have invested the products of my labor in some- 
thing to which he has a prejudice? He and his constituents are preju- 
diced against slavery, and will not live in a country where it exists. Sup- 
pose I and my constituents were to take the same prejudice against 
hogs, and sheep, and cattle, and say that we would not live in a country 
where they were permitted. Suppose that we, being a majority, should 
say to the people of Ohio, " You shall not drive your live-stock into the 
territories;" would we have a right to do it ? Would not the gentleman 
consider such a declaration an invasion of his constitutional privileges ? 
Whether deprived of his privilege to emigrate with his live-stock by the 
territorial legislature, or by the federal authority, would he not regard 
it an infraction of his rights as an American citizen ? 

Let me put another case. The senator from Connecticut [Mr. Smith] 
comes from a country where they make clocks, and sometimes very good 
ones; but we happen, at the South, to have some prejudices against 



342 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Yankee clocks. Suppose our people were tlie first to go into tliis terri- 
tory, could they say to the people of Connecticut, " You shall not bring 
your Yankee clocks here ?" Could the first half-dozen, or fifty of us who 
iniiT-ht emigrate from Mississippi or Alabama, undertake to exclude all 
New England simply on the clock question ? This territory covers an 
area about seven times as large as the state of Virginia. Now, the 
question is, had the first half-dozen southerners, who happened to squat 
on one corner of it, a right to say that in all future time, in no part of 
this vast domain, shall there ever be brought a Connecticut clock ? 
AVould it not be monstrous ? Would the people of Connecticut be will- 
ing to submit to it? Certainly not, and why? because a clock is pro- 
perty. It is something in which they invest the products of their labor 
— something against which they have no prejudice, but against which 
we have. 

Now, sir, I submit that if I, and my constituents, have no right to 
gratify our prejudices at the expense of Connecticut and her clocks, 
then the senator and his constituents have no right to gratify theirs at 
the expense of Mississippi and her negroes. 

I will not pursue this branch of the subject further. It was not my 
intention, in the beginning, to make a speech, and I have to apologize 
to the Senate for having already consumed more time than I ought. 

I intend, Mr. President, to vote for this bill. But I must confess that 
the particular section under debate, and the one which has given rise to 
so much discussion, is not worded as I should have liked. It is not free 
from ambiguity ; and, as I like directness in legislation, I would, if it 
had been left to me, have couched it in language so explicit that no one 
could have mistaken it. It declares, as a consequence of former legis- 
lation, that the Missouri compromise is inoperative and void. I would 
have said in terms: "the Missouri compromise is hereby repealed." But 
as the end is attained, I will not chafi'er as to the means by which we 
attain that end. 

The language employed by the distinguished author of this bill, and 
mover of the section now under consideration is, that the people of the 
territory may regulate their own domestic institutions for themselves, 
subject only to the restriction of the Constitution. I should have pre- 
ferred a simple repeal of the Missouri restriction. That would have 
restored us to the position we had before the law was passed, and would 
have been free from ambiguity or circumlocution. But the language 
employed is not decidedly objectionable to me, and, I repeat, I will vote 
for the bill. 

By yielding the " right to regulate domestic institutions," I understand 
Ave yield the right simply to regulate, not to destroy. To regulate is 
one thing, to destroy is another, and a very different thing. 

Domestic institutions include, as I admit, the relation of husband and 
wife, parent and child, master and servant. But I deny that the right 
to regulate carries along with it the right to destroy. The right to 
regulate the relation bteween master and servant no more entitled the 
regulating power to destroy that relation, than does the power to regu- 
late the relation between the husband and wife authorize the destruction 
of that relation. As well might the territorial legislature take a wife 
from her husband, under pretence of regulating their relations, as to 
take a servant from his master, under pretence of regulating that rela- 



NEBRASKA AND KANSAS. 34o 

tion. This is my opinion, and I vote for the bill clothed in its present 
phraseology because this is my opinion. If I thought that, in voting 
for the bill as it now stands, I was conceding the right of the people in 
the territory, during their territorial existence, to exclude slavery, I 
would withhold my vote. That equality that exists among the states, 
and the people of the states, under the Constitution, is not taken away 
by any fair construction of the language employed in the bill. Senators, 
North and South, have spoken as if the bill conceded the right of 
the people in a territory to exclude slavery. I combat the idea. It 
leaves the question where I am quite Avilling it should be left — to the 
ultimate decision of the courts. It is purely a judicial question, and if 
Congress will refrain from intimating an opinion, I am willing that the 
Supreme Court shall decide it. But, sir, I have too often seen that 
court sustaining the intentions of Congress, to risk a decision in my 
favor, after Congress has decided against me. The alien and sedition 
laws, the bank law, the tariff law, have all been decided constitutional. 
And why? Not, in my opinion, because they were so, but because the 
Supreme Court, as a coordinate department of the government, was dis- 
inclined to clash with the other departments. If this question is allowed 
to go before the Supreme Court, free from the influence of a congres- 
sional pre-judgment, I will abide the result, though it be against me. If 
other gentlemen had intimated no opinion, I would have intimated none. 
But I am unwilling to see the weight of authority here thrown altogether 
on one side. For this reason I have spoken, and for this reason I call 
upon others who concur with me to speak. 

Mr. President, I leave this subject. I ought not to have said so 
much, and yet I know not how I could have said less. At best, I could 
not hope to throw additional light on a subject like this. It has been 
illumined by the philosophy of Webster, made brilliant by the elo- 
quence of Clay, and consolidated by the severest of all tests — Calhoun's 
logic. Still I was desirous of presenting some views of my own ; and 
especially so, as I am advised that the senator from Michigan is going tu 
address the Senate. I know full well his powers in debate; and I have 
not presented my remarks to provoke his criticism. But this I know, 
if they pass the ordeal of his investigation, no power on earth can shake 
them. 

The senator will do me the justice to believe that it gives me no 
pleasure to differ with him on this subject. Accustomed to regard him 
as the great father of the Democratic family, I dissent with misgivings 
and great pain from anything that he says. On this question I think 
he is wrong ; but my mind is not sealed against conviction. I will listen 
to him, and if I find myself in error, I will confess it with more pleasure 
than I have had in expressing these views. It is honorable, at all times, 
to confess our faults, and to repair injuries when we are convinced. If 
I have been at fault, and being so, have done injustice to the senator, I 
shall be glad to know it. I would surrender to any antagonist fairly 
entitled to a victory ; but the age, experience, ability, and incorruptible 
integrity of the senator, make him an antagonist to whom any man mav 
surrender without dishonor. He has only to convince me, and I surreii-^ 
der at discretion. 



344 ALBERT G. BROWN. 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL. 

SPEECH IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, MARCH 2, 1854, ON THE INDIGENT 

INSANE BILL. 

Mr. President : I voted for the principles embodied in this bill 

♦ when I was a member of the House of Representatives, and I feel in- 
clined to do the same thing here ; but as in giving such a vote I shall 
differ with friends with whom I usually act, I feel desirous to assign the 
reasons why I shall do so. 

I will not attempt a defence of the motive which prompts me to vote 
for this bill. A proposition which looks to the relief of the insane — of 
a class of our fellow-mortals who are shut out, intellectually, from all 
the world — ought to receive, and I am sure would receive, the vote of 
every senator on this floor, if he felt that he was justified, by his obliga- 
tions to the Constitution, and his obligations of justice to his own con- 
stituents, in giving such a vote. I shall certainly not stop to defend my 
motives for giving a vote like this. 

The considerations which stand in the way of a unanimous vote in 
favor of this bill seem to be twofold : First, as to whether we have the 
power to pass it under the limitations of the Constitution ; and secondly, 
as to whether the bill does justice to all the states of the Union, and to 
all our constituents ? These questions are not altogether free from 
embarrassment. After having investigated this subject in the House of 
Representatives some years ago, I brought my mind to the conclusion 
that we had the constitutional right to pass a bill similar to this. 

I hold, Mr. President, that our authority over the public lands is more 
unlimited than is our power over the treasury of the nation. We hold 
our authority over the lands under a different clause of the Constitution 
from those clauses which authorize us to use the public money. Congress 
has. power "to dispose of" the public lands. This power, I apprehend, 
is only limited by this : That they shall not be disposed of for purposes 
which are in themselves unconstitutional. 

You have no right to increase or diminish the President's salary, or 
the salary of some other ofiicers, during their term of office. You could 
not, therefore, under the general power to dispose of the public lands, 

• give them to the President, or give them to any other officer whose salary 
is fixed by law, and Avhich must neither be increased nor diminished 
during his continuance in office. But unless there be some limitation 
like this, imposed by some other provision of the Constitution than the 
one to which I have referred as giving us power to dispose of the public 
lands, I hold that you may use them for whatever purpose you may 
select ; and upon this principle the government has uniformly acted, 
from its organization down to the present hour. 

What, sir, have we done in reference to the public lands heretofore ? 
We have given them away to erect public buildings in the states ; we 
have given them away to establish common schools in the states ; we 
have given them away to endow colleges in the states ; we have sold them 
at every conceivable price, from twelve and a half cents an acre up to 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL. 345 

fifty and sixty dollars an acre. We have given them for works of inter- 
nal improvement in the states ; we have given them as bounties to soldiers, 
to whom we owed nothing but debts of gratitude — soldiers who had been 
paid off and discharged forty years before we made the gift. 

Under the act of 1841, you absolutely gave to each of the new states 
of the Union 500,000 acres of these lands, for a purpose Avhich my 
southern friends insist is one not to be patronized from the general trea- 
sury ; to wit, for purposes of internal improvement. Only two or three 
years ago, you made a relinquishment of millions upon millions of acres 
of lands to the new states, by what is commonly called the Swamp Land 
Bill. If Ave examine all these schemes, I apprehend it will be found, 
takino- them all together, that they have been passed by a unanimous 
vote in this body. In other words, I think it will be found that there is 
not a member of the Senate who has not, at some time, voted for some 
one of these propositions. And why ? Because senators have been in 
the habit of regarding our powers as unlimited over the public lands, 
except in the instances which I have pointed out, and those which are 
similar. 

The senator from Virginia [Mr. Hunter] yesterday said that he could 
not draw the distinction between dividing the public lands for this object, 
and in the way proposed by the bill, and distributing the net proceeds 
of the sales of the public lands among the states. I hold that the two 
cases are different in this : That over the lands you have the unlimited 
control of which I have spoken, but when they have been sold, and the 
money has gone into the treasury, it becomes part and parcel of that 
treasury, and you have no more control there over moneys derived from 
the sales of lands than you have over moneys derived from imposts, or 
from any other quarter. It becomes one common treasury ; and your 
control over one part of it is precisely the same as your control over 
every other part of it. 

I would ask the senator from Virginia whether he conceives that Con- 
gress has a right to appropriate the net proceeds of the sale of one 
section of land, in a particular township, for school purposes in that 
township ? Or, in these words, suppose that, instead of giving the land 
for school purposes, as Congress has done, and as the senator intimated 
yesterday Congress has a right to do, we should sell the lands and put 
the money in the treasury, and then there should be a proposition to 
appropriate the money back again to the same object. Suppose the 
section had been sold for $1000 ; could you take $1000 from the trea- 
sury, and appropriate it back again to establish common schools there ? 
I apprehend not. And why? Because you cannot pursue the land 
after it is converted into money. When you have converted it into 
money, you lose that control over it, which you have and may rightfully 
exercise so long as it is land. This is so, because when you put it into 
the treasury, as I remarked before, it becomes part and parcel of one 
common fund. There is no line which divides the land money from the 
money received from customs, or from any other source of revenue. It 
is not so, however, so long as it retains its distinctive character as land. 
The senator from Virginia, yesterday, justified the granting of lands to 
railroad companies. While it seemed to be unfair towards some of the 
states, yet he thought it might be justified upon the ground, that by 



346 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

giving one section of land for a railroad, the alternate section was 
improved in value. 

Mr. Hunter. If the senator will allow me, I said nothing about 
giving lands to railroad companies. 

Mr. Brown. I understood the senator to saj that the grants which 
we had made heretofore for internal improvements — 

Mr. Hunter. I spoke of the grants of the school sections. 

Mr. Brown. I, perhaps, attributed the argument to the wrong quarter. 
I heard it from some source, and was about to reply to it. If it be the 
fact that the giving of the alternate sections to railroads makes the 
remaining sections worth twice as much as before, that does not aifect 
the question of power — as to whether you have the right to do it. That 
fact may furnish a very good reason why you should exercise a power 
already existing, but certainly it cannot confer a power which did not 
exist before. I would put the question of power to grant lands, as 
proposed in this bill, upon the same ground as the question of power to 
grant land to railroads. You derive it from that clause in the Consti- 
tution which gives you authority to dispose of the public lands. You 
get it there. The purpose for which you dispose of them does not and 
cannot, by any possibility, aifect the question of power. If you do not 
have the power to appropriate the lands, no use to which you can apply 
them, how^ever beneficial to yourselves or to others, can confer the 
power. The fact that one section of land is doubled in value by giving 
an adjoining section to insure the construction of a canal or railroad, 
can only prove that such disposition of the land is wise or prudent. But 
it cannot confer a power not already existing under the Constitution. 
If you have no authority under the Constitution to grant land to rail- 
roads, you cannot assume it and justify the act solely on the ground 
that nothing is lost thereby to the government, or that it may prove a 
speculation. If the advantage resulting to the treasury is to furnish 
the rule that governs us in our use of the public lands or money, I know 
not why the government should not become a stockholder in every profit- 
able railroad, or other successful scheme for speculation in the United 

States. 

I hold this to be true, that Congress has no authority over the public 
money that can justify its use for any purpose other than the common 
benefit. The public — general, I may say universal — interests of the 
whole country must be subserved in the use of the public money. You 
have no authority to use it for local, partial, neighborhood purposes. 
Your authority over the public lands is less limited. With them, as I 
have said, you have endowed colleges, established common schools, 
cleaned out rivers, erected levees, constructed railroads, sold them for 
almost nothing, and given them to individuals without price. Could you 
thus have treated the public treasury ? 

If Congress could endow more than twenty colleges by grants of pub- 
lic lands,'l know of no reason why it may not endow a lunatic asylum. 
The same clause that authorized you to give Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, 
Mississippi, Alabama, and other states lands for college purposes, will 
justify you in giving these and other states lands for the indigent insane. 
if, having the power, it was a wise and judicious use of it to give lands 
to the sane, how much more wise and humane must it be to give it to 
the insane ? 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL. 347 

I do not question the power. I think the hill proposes a wise, judi- 
cious, benevolent, and humane exercise of it ; and if justice is done to 
my own, and all the other states, I know not why I may not vote for it, 

I do not desire to pursue this branch of the subject. My right being 
clear in my own judgment, to give the vote, my only purpose was to 
justify it in the judgment of others. 

The next question is, whether it will be just not only towards my own 
state but towards all the states of the Union, to pass such a bill as this ? 
In the outset I yield the claim which has been so often set up and in- 
sisted on, that the old states have an interest in these lands ; though I 
think they have sometimes made more fuss about it than there was any 
occasion for. I think I have heard the senator from Virginia occasion- 
ally speak of the interest which his state has, in common with the other 
old states, in the public lands. 

Now, when we propose to recognise the existence of this claim, and, 
to some extent, discharge it, the gentleman from Virginia comes in and 
opposes it. The distribution of the land provided for in this bill, is per- 
haps as near right as it can well be made. 

Mr. Badger. They cannot be perfectly right. 

Mr. Brown. As the senator suggests, absolute right cannot be 
reached ; no human ingenuity can devise a bill which would be abso- 
lutely and perfectly just towards all parties. There must be some little 
injustice somewhere ; it is so in all our legislation ; but this bill gives to 
the old states and to the new, an appropriation of public lands, and it 
divides them among them according to their population and territorial 
extent. 

Now, sir, if we pass this bill, it will relieve the state of North Carolina, 
the state of Vii'ginia, and all the other states from that which is a bur- 
den upon their own treasury and upon the purses of their people ; for 
the insane must be taken care of, everywhere, in all civilized communi- 
ties. Almost all the states have made provision for this purpose, and 
those who have not, ought to do it, and doubtless will do it very soon ; 
and how is this to be done but by levying taxes upon their people ? Pass 
this bill, and you relieve them, to some extent, from this taxation. I 
believe the state of North Carolina gets from 300,000 to 400,000 acres, 
and to that extent the bill creates a fund to relieve her people from tax- 
ation for the particular objects specified in the bill. It will have the 
same effect in all the other states. To this extent, it is just to one state 
as it is just to the others. Its operations will be equal, or as near so 
as we can make them, with a single exception which I will point out. 

There is in this bill a provision, which was introduced two or three 
mornings ago, and which caused me to hesitate as to whether I could 
vote for it. It was the amendment introduced by the senator from 
California, excepting that state out of the general operations of the bill. 
It struck me at the time that it was hardly fair to give any one state of 
the Union an advantage over the others, by excepting her out of the 
general provisions of a law like this. That there are reasons now exist- 
ing why California should be thus favored may be true, but those reasons 
must pass away after a few years. The amendment authorizes California 
to locate her land upon any unoccupied and unsurveyed territory within 
her limits. There are unsurveyed and unoccupied lands within the 
limits of other states — Iowa, Wisconsin, Arkansas, and perhaps others. 



348 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

But these states have no right to appropriate them under this hill. They 
must take their land, and my state must take hers, from that which has 
been surveyed, offered for sale, and is now subject to entry at ^1.25 per 
acre ; and the same is true of all the states, save California alone, she 
being specially excepted out of the general provisions of the bill. 

Every one who knows anything about the public lands, knows that 
there is a vast deal of difference between being confined to land subject 
to entry at private sale, and being allowed to go upon land which has 
never been brought into the market, and where you can get better land, 
and that of infinitely more value. I say I did not think this provision 
just at first, and I thought I would not vote for the bill upon that 
ground ; but, upon reflection, as it does not affect the interest of my 
state, and as I have the opportunity of saying that, in giving my vote, I 
do not mean to approve of the principle involved in the amendment, I 
will still vote for the bill. It does not interpose an insuperable barrier. 
It gives an undue advantage to California, but it works no special injury 
to Mississippi. My state gets the same with this provision in the bill as 
if it was out, and she gets it in the same way ; and being able, in this 
form, to put upon the record that, in giving my vote, I do not desire to 
be understood as approving any principle which draws a distinction 
between the states of the Union, I can still vote for the bill. 

If California cannot get her lands this year or next year, she will be 
able to get them much before she is as old as the youngest of her sisters — 
long before she will be a state as old as Mississippi. In a few years she 
will be enabled to realize the benefits of this bill in precisely the same 
way that Mississippi and other states realize them now. Still I do not 
interpose this as an insuperable barrier to my vote. Without detaining 
the Senate further, I have only to say, in conclusion, that having given 
to the bill all the reflection which my time and opportunities have 
allowed me, I feel prepared to vote for it. 



On the 7th of March Mr. Brown continued the discussion, and in re- 
ply to his colleague (Mr. Adams) said as follows : — 

I do not intend,' Mr. President, to protract this discussion. It 
is not my purpose at all to reply to the speech of the senator 
from Delaware ; I have, however, a few words to say in reply to the re- 
marks which my colleague made this morning, and, as he will under- 
stand, certainly in no spirit of controversy; but as we differ about this 
measure, I wish that my views may go upon the record with his own. I 
shall not repeat what I said the other day when I gave my views upon 
the bill. 

I do not understand my colleague as calling in question the power of 
the government to make such grants of the public land as have been 
made heretofore for school purposes, for internal improvement purposes, 
and for the various objects to which Congress has appropriated public 
lands. He is not understood by me as calling in question the power of 
the government to appropriate land, as it has appropriated it in our own 
state, for example, for public buildings, nor the power to appropriate 
land, not only to endow colleges, but to establish common schools. He 
has not questioned the power of the government to make us a grant of 
more than a million of acres of land for internal improvement purposes, 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL. 349 

to erect levees on the banks of the Mississippi, and various other 
streams in our own state, and in other new states which have had the 
same sort of grants. My colleague at this very session has introduced 
one or two hills making grants of alternate sections of land for railroad 
purposes. In doing this I had supposed that the whole question of 
power was conceded. 

I know that my colleague and myself agree upon one thing — that this 
government has no power to make appropriations from the national 
treasury for works of internal improvement. He will not pretend to 
insist that Congress may sell the alternate sections of land which he 
himself proposes to grant, and then vote back from the treasury of the 
United States the precise sum which it had received from the sale of 
these lands, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of the roads. 
My colleague will not pretend that Congress has power to sell the mil- 
lions of acres of swamp lands Avhich have been granted to our own state, 
even at one cent an acre, and then appropriate that money back from 
the treasury to erect a levee on the Mississippi river, or on the bank of 
any other stream. He, therefore, like myself, draws a clear distinction 
between the power which the federal government exercises over the pub- 
lic lands and the power which it exercises over money in the treasury. 
My colleague will not pretend for a moment — for I know he is a Demo- 
crat, and a strict constructionist — that Congress has power to sell a 
township of land in our own state, and then take the money for which 
it has sold that township, and appropriate it to the endowment of a col- 
lege in that state. Yet all such grants in the form of land, have not 
only received our sanction, but have received the approval of our votes, 
upon the ground that the federal government administers the public 
lands upon one principle, and the money in the treasury upon another 
principle ; that you hold your power over the lands by a tenure very 
different and more ample than that by which you hold your power over 
the treasury of the nation. 

Now, I do not understand my colleague as having objected to the ex- 
ercise of these powers heretofore ; and he admits the distinction which I 
have drawn. He says, however, that heretofore the grants have been 
made to states within which the lands lay ; that land has been given to 
Mississippi, for example, to Alabama, Louisiana, and other states, but 
always taken from the public domain lying within the limits of those 
states. I cannot conceive that this affects the question of power. The 
land either belongs to the new states, or it belongs to all the states. If 
it belongs to the new states, to the states within which it lies, then we 
have no business to come here to Congress and ask you, Mr. President, 
and your associates here, to dole it out to us. If it is our land, if it 
belongs to the land states, why should we ask Congress to give it to us ? 
Why not assert our authority over it, take it into possession, and admin- 
ister it in our own way? If it be, as I suppose it is, the property of 
all the states, the old as well as the new, then I know not by what sort 
of reasoning my honorable colleague and other gentlemen will justify 
themselves in voting to give land to the new states and refusing to give it 
to the old states. I say, sir, that if Virginia, and Massachusetts, and other 
old states have an interest in these lands, like the land states themselves, 
the same authority which authorizes you to give land to the new authorizes 
you to give it to the old states ; and the same authority which authorizes 



350 ALBEILT G. BROWN. 

you to give land for school purposes, and endow a school, will authorize you 
to give it to endow an insane asylum. I want to see the astute gentleman 
from Delaware, who has exercised his ingenuity on this subject, draw the 
distinction between endowing a college for sane children and a college for 
insane children. 

Mr. Bayard. I will state the difference to the gentleman in a 
moment. I cannot account for the reason under which Congress may 
have acted when they adopted the acts to which he refers ; but I can 
state the reason why I suppose, from the circumstances, they did so act. 
I know the fact, that the general land system authorizes the reservation 
of every sixteenth section in a township for school purposes. I know 
the fact, that the swamp lands, as they are called, have been granted 
to the states in which they lay. I suppose that was upon the principle 
which was stated by the honorable senator from Louisiana, of the right 
of the government as a landholder. When Congress were devising a 
general system for the disposition of the public lands, they organized a 
land system on the basis of securing every sixteenth section for school 
purposes, so that it would be an inducement to settlers to go on the lands 
and purchase them. 

So in regard to the swamp lands. They supposed them to have been im- 
practicable and useless as to any benefit to the general government ; and, 
as they had no authority to enter into improvements on them, in order 
to drain them, for the purposes of sale, they gave them to the states in 
which they lay, under the idea that if they were drained by those states, 
the draining would tend to improve the residue of the lands within the 
limits of those states. This is what I suppose to be the basis on which 
the distinction is drawn between making an application of the public 
lands to the states at large and the states in which they lie. It is a part 
of the general system conducive to the sale of the lands, but that would 
not apply to the present bill. 

Mr. Brown. I understand the gentleman's argument perfectly ; but 
he has failed to draw the distinction between the arguments which 
justify the exercise of power and those which establish its existence. 
When you gave away the swamp lands for the purposes indicated by the 
senator from Delaware, and when you gave alternate sections of land to 
aid in the construction of a railroad, you gave it because the grant 
enhanced the value of the remaining lands. That is the reason which 
in such a case moves you to action. It is the argument by which you 
undertake to justify the giving away of the public lands ; but it cer- 
tainly does not confer the power on you to give them away. The exist- 
ence of the power must be there in the beginning, and then you resort 
to this argument to justify you in the exercise of the power which 
exists. 

Sir, if you have no power to give to the state of Mississippi alternate 
sections of land for railroad purposes, can you assume the power, simply 
because by granting alternate sections you enhance the value of the ad- 
joining sections ? If there is that in the Constitution which forbids the 
giving of the land, how can you get the power simply because by its 
exercise you may make the adjoining sections worth twice as much as 
they were before ? This may be a very good argument and a very good 
reason why you should exercise the power if it exists, but it cannot be 
the basis of a constitutional right. 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL. 351 

Now, if you have no power under the Constitution to give land for 
school purposes in a township, can you assume and exercise the power, 
simply because by giving it you may induce settlement there ? The fact 
that the grant will induce settlements may furnish a very good reason 
why you should exercise the power if it exists ; but that fact cannot 
give the power, if there is an absence of it in the Constitution. If you 
have power to grant lands for school purposes, for internal improvement 
purposes, in order to erect public buildings, to give bounties to soldiers, 
and for the thousand and one other purposes for which you have used 
them, it is clear to my mind that you have power to grant them to the 
states to enable the states to erect insane asylums. Then the power to 
grant land for this purpose existing, I shall have no difficulty in showing 
that the purpose aimed at in this bill can be justified upon the soundest 
principles of reason, philanthropy, and everything which is honorable 
to our common nature. It is a simple question of power, and I derive 
it from the same source from which you derive power to give land to 
railroads, to give it for school purposes, and give it to soldiers, and to 
give it for the thousand and one other purposes for which you have given 
it from the time you first exercised authority over the public lands down 
to the present hour. 

My colleague talked about this being the first instance in which land 
was to be given to any other than the states in which it lay. What did 
you do when you gave away fifteen or twenty millions of acres — perhaps 
more, certainly not less — to soldiers, of whom seven or eight thousand, 
perhaps more, perhaps twenty thousand, were in the state of New York, 
and went to the land states and located their lands there ? Was that 
giving lands to the states in which they lay ? No more than this is 
giving lands to the states in which they lay. In that case you issued 
scrip to the twenty thousand discharged soldiers in New York, and they 
sold the scrip, or located it in the new states. Here you propose to give 
the state of New Y'"ork seven or eight hundred thousand, or a million 
acres of land in scrip — she cannot locate it in her own name, but must 
sell it to individuals, and in the end it will be located just as bounty 
warrants are. Then I want to know where is the distinction between 
the two cases ? You issued, say fifteen millions of acres in scrip to the 
soldiers in New Y'ork and Pennsylvania, and they have gone and located 
their scrip in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and the other new states and 
territories. Now you propose to issue to those states, say two millions 
of scrip, under this bill, to be located in the same way. What is the 
distinction between the two cases ? I ask my honorable colleague how 
can he draw a distinction ? It is true, in one case the scrip was issued 
to individuals living: out of the land states ; but those individuals sold it 
to some other individuals who went and located it; and here you issue 
scrip directly to the states, but the states sell it to individuals, and the 
individuals at last locate it in the new states, and settle on the lands ; so 
that the effect on the land is precisely the same in both cases, and the 
principle involved, so far as I can see, is precisely the same. 

Having turned this question over in my mind, and having viewed it in 
every aspect in which it can be looked upon, I have come to the conclu- 
sion that no reasonable obstacle can stand in the way of passing this bill 
on the ground of a want of power. And now I will state a reason sug- 
gested by the argument of ray colleague why I may vote for the bill. 



352 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

I hold that the old states have an interest in this land, an interest 
which we recognise, and which we are bound to recognise, which we 
practically recognise in the very act of coming here and asking them to 
vote to give us land for our railroads. I will not ask the old states to 
yield their interest to me for railroad purposes, and for the purpose of 
fencing out the floods of the Mississippi river, and other western and 
southwestern streams. I will not ask them to give up their interest in 
the swamp lands. I will not ask them to give up their interest to educate 
the children in my state, as they have' done by granting her the six- 
teenth section of public land in every township for school purposes. I 
will not ask of them to surrender their interest to promote the interest 
of my state, and then turn upon them and say, " I M'ill not vote you one 
solitary acre of this land for any purpose within the limits of your 
states." While I will be generous to myself, generous even to a fault to 
my own constituency, I will at least be just to those who have an in- 
terest in these lands like that of the people whom I represent. 

I do not, however, rise to discuss this question again. My colleague 
will certainly understand me as not presenting my views, in reply to him, 
in any spirit of controversy ; but I wish to justify the vote which I shall 
give ; and more especially since my honorable colleague will vote on the 
other side. 



PRESIDENT PIERCE'S YETO MESSAGE OF THE 
INDIGENT INSANE BILL. 

SPEECH DELIVERED IX THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MAY 17, 

1854, ON THE PRESIDENT'S VETO MESSAGE, AND IN DEFENCE OF THE 

BILL MAKING A GRANT OF LAND TO THE SEVERAL STATES FOR 

THE BENEFIT OF THE INDIGENT INSANE.* 

Mr. President : It is with extreme regret that I utter a word on this 
subject. To me it would be a more grateful task to sustain the views of 

* 3IayZ, 1854, Mr. Brown, on the reception of the President's Message vetoing the 
Indigent Insane Bill, made the following remarks, preliminary to the complete dis- 
cussion of the merits of the veto : — 

Mr. President -. Of course I do not wish to say a word as to the number of copies 
of this message which should be printed. I would as soon vote for the printing of 
twenty thousand as for printing ten thousand copies. I have no doubt that every 
reading man in the country will examine the message, and examine it with great 
care. But I think it is due to those who voted for this bill that something shall go 
out with the message to arrest public attention, and induce the public mind to pause, 
before it comes to too hasty a conclusion, as to the correctness of the doctrines set 
forth in that paper. I certainly do not intend to undertake an answer to a carefully 
prepared statfe paper, upon merely hearing it read at the Secretary's desk. This, 
however, is not the first time that the subject of giving lands for the benefit of the 
insane has been before the Senate. It was here, according to the record which lies 
before me, in 1851, and, after an elaborate discussion, the bill then passed the Senate 
by a majority of more than two to one. I have the yeas and nays before me. On 
that occasion the yeas were 36, and the nays 16. That the Senate may understand 
who it was that voted in favor of the bill at that time, I ask leave to read the list of 
yeas and nays. The yeas were : — 

" Messrs. Badger. Baldwin, Bell, Benton, Berrien, Borland, Bradbury, Chaae, Clark, Clay, Cooper, Davis of 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL— PRESIDENT PIERCE'S VETO. 353 

the President than to oppose them. A strict constructionist of the Con- 
stitution myself, it is more pleasant for me to act in harmony with those 
who construe it strictly, than to differ with them. We have rare ex- 
Massachusetts, Dawson, Dayton. Downs, Ewing, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, Miller, Morton, Norris, Pearce, Phelps, 
Pratt, Rusk, Seward, Shields, Smith, Soule, Spruaiice, Sturgeon, Underwood, Upham, and Wales — 36." 

The nays were : — 

" Messrs. Atchison, Cass, Dayis of Mississippi. Dodge of Wisconsin, Dodge of Iowa, Felch, Gwin, Houston, 
Hunter, Jones, King, Ma,son, Rhett, Turney, Wallter, and Yulee — 16." 

It will be seen by an analysis of the vote that some of the most rigidly strict con- 
structionists of the Constitution are recorded in fevor of the bill ; among them are 
two gentlemen who have received the highest mark of the President's consideration — 
Mr. Borland and Mr. Soule. They are strict constructionists of the southern school ; 
and they have both been sent abroad on missions of the first class. I mention this 
fact simply that the country may be induced to pause before it comes to too hasty a 
conclusion in reference to this subject. 

During the present session of Congress the bill has been under consideration iu 
the House of Representatives. On its passage the yeas were 81, nays 53. It was 
discussed there. It was certainly not hastily passed. After having been before 
Congress for several years, and after being pretty elaborately discussed at this ses- 
sion, and at former sessions, it has passed the House, if not by a majority of two to 
one, certainly by a very heavy majority. My experience is, that in the House they 
divide pretty closely upon almost every question of general interest. I find among 
the yeas many gentlemen of acknowledged ability, strict constructionists of the Con- 
stitution, good Democrats, men who have never been suspected of faltering in the 
support of the Constitution, or of Democratic principles. The same bill was under 
cimsideration in the Senate during this session, and though the Senate then was not 
80 full as it was in 1851, when the former vote was taken, the bill passed this body a 
second time by a majority of over two to one. The vote was 25 to 12. The yeas 
upon the occasion of its passage were : — 

'■ 5Ies.srs. BadfTT. Bell, Brown, Chase, Clayton, Dawson, Dodpe of Wisconsin, Everett, Fessenden. Fish, Foot, 
(^eyer, Gwin. Hamlin. Houston. .Tones of Tennessee. Morton, Kusk, Seward, t'hields, Stuart, Sumner, Thnmp- 
S'>n of Kentucky, Wade, and Walker — 25." 

The nays were : — 

'■ Messrs. Adams, Atchison, Butler, Ca.-^s, Clay, Dodge of Iowa, Douglan, Fitzpatrick, Ma^'on, Peftit, Weller, 
and Williams — 12." 

I do not say, sir, that after these votes the President was bound to approve the 
bill against his views of constitutional propriety. I am very far from finding any 
fiiult with him for having sent in this veto. But I again say, that, looking to vote's 
like these, the country ought to pause before it comes to a hasty conclusion in refer- 
ence to the soundness of the views which the President has put forth. It is no light 
thing for a measure, after passing the Senate twice by a majority of more than two 
to one, and after passing the House of Representatives by a majority of nearly two 
to one, to encounter an executive veto. If it had passed hastily, or without due con- 
sideration, it would not surprise any one if the President should arrest it. But the 
bill before us, as we all know, was discussed in both Houses of Congress, at this and 
at former sessions. 

I said before that I did not mean to attempt an answer to the arguments of the 
President, after having merely heard his message read. Some of the arguments, I 
confess, struck me as having force in them. Some others seemed to me to have bub 
little force. This, perhaps, arose from the fact that I had heard them on many occa- 
sions before, and having become accustomed to them, I did not regard them with the 
same consideration that I would something new. 

The President, in the outset of the message, admits that this is a measure of great 
laimanity, and one which commends itself to tlie warmest sympathies of his heart. 
I am glad he said so, because I apprehend that the sentiment will find a response in 
the heart of every American citizen, of every friend of humanity, whether he resides 
north or south, east or west. The President says tliat eleemosynary objects or purposes 
are not among those vs-hich are provided for in the Constitution. So they are not in 
express terms ; but does Congress never legislate upon any subject in regard to which 
it has not been been expressly authorized to legislate ? If not, I want to know where 
we get our authority to legislate for school purposes? The President makes an argu- 
ment to show by implication that we have the power to do that. All the grants that 



C54 ALBERT G BROWN. 

amples in the administration of the government of a rigid adherence to 
that instrument, and any attempt to set us an example excites my ad- 
miration. I could wish, however, that the President had selected a less 

liave been made from time to time for school purposes are sanctioned by the Consti- 
tution, according to his construction of it ; and yet, sir, you may read the instrument 
from one end to the other, and find no specific power to make grants for school pur- 
poses. If the President will point to the clause which authorizes grants of land to 
colleges, I will show him the clause which authorizes the grant proposed in this bill. 
But, says the President, if we legislate for the benefit of the insane, where are we 
to stop? "Are we to carry our benevolence so far as to legislate for the protection 
of all other indigent or unfortunate classes ? This, you will see at once, is not an 
argument which can touch the question of power, but it is simply an argument which 
reaches the question of the exercise of power. If you have authority to do this, it 
may follow that you have the power to do something else ; but it does not follow that 
because you do this, you ought therefore to do something else. If you have the power 
to make an appropriation of land for the protection and benefit of the indigent insane, 
it may follow that you have the power to make an appropriation of land for the pro- 
tection and benefit of the indigent who are not insane. But if you exercise the power 
in the one case, it does not necessarily follow that you must exercise it in the other. 
The President seems to think that in this matter the states will be brought to bow 
to the authority of Congress. I do not think so. When my state and yours, Mr. 
President (Mr. Bright occupying the chair), accepted donations of land for school 
purposes, for common schools, and for schools of a higher grade, did it ever enter 
into your head or mine that our states were thereby humiliated, and were bowing as 
paupers, and beggars, and mendicants, to the authority of Congress? No, sir ; we 
felt that we were receiving a part of that which belonged to us, that Ave were not 
l)eggars, but that Congress was giving its assent to our exercising exclusive jurisdic- 
tion over a part of that which belonged to us in common with our fellow-citizens of 
all vhe states. 

The President seems also to be apprehensive that if we go on legislating in this 
way, we shall dry up all the sources of benevolence in the states, and that the people 
(,f the states, instead of taking care of their indigent insane, their poor, their blind, 
and their lame, will habitually look to Congress for the protection of those classes. 
I think not. With as much justice might you say that, if you receive land from the 
government for the education, in part, of your children, this will induce the states to 
Took to Congress for the means of educating all the children. Did it ever enter into 
your mind, sir, when Congress granted your state the sixteenth section of land in 
(»ach township for school purposes, that, by the state accepting it, you wore in danger 
of becoming mendicants, begging Congress to make appropriations for the education 
of all the children in your state ? I apprehend there is no more danger of our be- 
coming beggars at the footstool of Congress for the support of our indigent insane, 
our indigent blind, and our poor of every class, if we accept a grant like this, than 
there has been that we should become beggars of Congress to educate all our chil- 
dren, because, in days gone by, we accepted aid from Congress to educate a part of 
them. 

But, sir, the President further tells us that this bill is in violation of the public 
faith. And why ? Because the land stands mortgaged for the redemption of our 
public debt. With all due respect for the President, I must say that this argument 
does not strike my mind with great force. You have more money in the treasury 
now than will satisfy all the demands against it. Your Secretary of the Treasury is 
out in the market, constantly buying up, at a large premium, the bonds of the govern- 
ment. Instead of being without money, and being compelled, in good faith, to keep 
the mortgaged property until you discharge the obligations which are resting upon 
it, you have more money than will satisfy all the demands against you. 

I cannot conceive that the bill is in violation of the public faith, because in disposing 
of the lands as the bill proposes, you are not putting yourselves in a condition to avoid, 
or even to render dubious, the payment of your public debt. But, sir, when Congress 
passed a bill granting millions upon millions of acres of the public lands tojour sol- 
diers, the public domain was then under mortgage. The same sort of obligation rested 
upon it then as now. The same thing occurred when you passed the swamp land 
act. When you granted millions upon millions of acres of land for railroad purposes, 
\ou granted land which was under this same mortgage. It is true, an argument J8 
rnade to prove that if you grant one section for a railroad, the next is doubled in 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL— PRESIDENT PIERCE'S VETO. 355 

worthy object than tlio one before us for a manifestation of his zeal in 
sustaining the Constitution in its letter and in its spirit. 

If this were- an original question I would be silent. But having voted 

value, and so nothing is given ; but suppose the mortgagee does not think so : and 
suppose it does not turn out so ; is the public faith violated? The President intro- 
duces the prudent proprietorship argument, to justify grants to railroads. It is one 
which we have frequently heard, and it always strikes me with great force. 

But if Congress, as a prudent proprietor, may grant land for one purpose, saying 
"this is as I would dispose of it,-' where does the President get authority to say to 
that proprietor, " you shall not grant it for another purpose, because that purpose 
does not strike me as being proper." If a prudent proprietor may give land for 
school purposes, for railroad purposes, for internal improvement purposes, and for 
various other purposes, as you have done time and time again ; and if the same pro- 
prietor concludes that he may give a little for the protection and benefit of the indi- 
gent insane, who shall dispute his right to do so, or restrain him in the exercise of 
his judgment? The people are the owners of the soil, and, I think, if their repre- 
sentatives say, in their name, that this is a just and proper disposal of the land, they 
ought to be allowed to appropriate it in this way. That is my judgment. 

One of the grounds on which the President justifies our giving away the swamp 
lands is, that, by so doing, we protected the public health. He intimates that the 
lands were subject to overflow, and produced miasma and malaria, and were exceed- 
ingly detrimental to the publig health. To get clear of this nuisance, it was a prudent 
disposition to give the lands to the states, that the states might drain them, and thus 
secure the public health. This is the argument as I understand it. Where, sir, do 
we get power to protect the public health? Is that in the Constitution? If we 
protect the public health in a state, and do it constitutionally, I pray you, have we 
not the right to protect the indigent insane in a state, under the same clause in the 
Constitution ? If "Congress may do anything towards protecting the public health in 
the state of Arkansas, or Mississippi, why, by the same authority, may it not protect 
the indigent insane in Delaware, or Pennsylvania? I confess myself wholly unable 
to see how it can exercise the one power, and yet be constitutionally denied the right 
to exercise the other. I should never have thought, myself, of such an argument : 
but the President seems to rely upon it ; and, therefore, I take it for granted there 
must be something in it more than I have seen. 

I should not have said a word on the message at this time, but that I wanted the 
country to understand when they enter upon the investigation of this subject, tliafc 
after mature discussion in this body, the bill has twice passed on the yeas and nays 
by a majority of more than two to one. I want that this point may be understood ; 
that calm, dispassionate men shall, when they come to investigate the suliject, take 
into account the fact that while the President has felt constrained to veto this bill on 
constitutional grounds, other gentlemen of high legal fame have taken different 
grounds ; that there are arguments, in fact, on the other side of the question. A 
right minded man, a man of proper thought, ought, in justice to the Senate and 
House, before he makes up his mind, to examine and see what the arguments are 
that justified the vote, and then having taken the p7-os and cons into the account, 
having investigated both sides of the question, give such judgment as he feels he 
ought to render. 

I voted for this bill when it was before the body ; and upon hearing the message 
read, my convictions of its constitutionality have not been at all shaken. I will read 
the message, and read it again. I have none of that sort of pride of opinion, that 
love of consistency, which will induce me still to stand by the bill, if, upon a careful 
investigation of the President's arguments, I shall be convinced that he is right and 
I am wrong. But I say that upon hearing the message read from the secretary's 
desk, I have not been so convinced. The inclination of my mind now is, and it is 
strongly so, that I shall record my vote as I did before. 

I trust, sir, that no one will suppose that in submitting these remarks, and in 
taking this position, I am becoming in any degree the antagonist of the President. 
He has his constitutional opinions about this question ; I have mine. He acts upon 
his convictions; and I shall act on mine. I will make no attack upon him ; far, 
very far from it. I have great personal respect for the President; great respect for 
him as a politician and as the head of the great party to which I belong ; and I am 
sure he will not take it amiss if I say that I have yet a much higher respect for the 
distinguished office to which he has been elevated by the American people. These 



S-'S ALBERT G. BROWN. 

for tlie bill that lias fallen under the Executive veto, in the House anil 
i?\ the Senate, I feel called upon in justice to my constituents, and to 
myself, to assign the reasons which justified me in giving these votes. 
I yield to no man in a rigid adherence to the Constitution, 

I have no oration to pronounce in behalf of the indigent insane. These 
chiMren of misfortune are their own most earnest advocates. Immured 
in cells, or shut up in loathsome dungeons, shut out from the light of 
•lay and from the light of reason, with the hand of God resting heavily 
upon them, their mute appeals to us for help and succor are more elo- 
quent than anything that I can say. 

The President has declared, with an earnestness that does him credit 
as a man and a Christian, that he has "been compelled to resist the deep 
sympathies of his own heart in favor of the humane purposes sought to 
be accomplished" by this bill. The sentiment will find a hearty response 
in the bosom of every good man. Of all the millions who live under the 
?egis of our Constitution, there is perhaps not one who will not say that 
the purposes sought to be accomplished by the bill are humane, benevo- 
lent. Christian, and eminently worthy of all the support which we can 
give them consistently with our duties to the Constitution. We have, 
then, but one question before us: Can we pass this bill without violating 
the Constitution ? 

To that question I address myself. 

The Constitution says : " The Congress shall have power to dispose 
OF and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory 
or other property belonging to the United States." 

That the word territory is used in this connection as synonymous with 
land, and that land is here treated of purely as property, is not ques- 
tioned, I believe, by the President or any one else. 

To dispose of — to dispose of the territory, to dispose of the land — ■ 
what is meant by that phraseology? In ordinary parlance, it means to 
give, to sell, to bestow, to convey, and I apprehend that it was used 
simply to convey its ordinary meaning. The framers of the Constitu- 
tion were men not only of common sense, but of extraordinary astute- 
ness. They knew the force of words, and the meaning of words, and it 
is a reproach to them to say that they employed words with one signifi- 
cation in the Constitution, which, in their common every-day use, carried 
with them a diiferent signification. 

I have consulted eminent lexicographers as to the true meaning of the 
words "to dispose of," and with these results: — 

JoHNSOX. — To dispose: To employ for various purposes; to give; to 
place ; to bestow. 

To dispose of: To give away; to employ to any end; to put into the 

HANDS OF ANOTHER. 

Richardson. — Dispose: To emj^loi/ for or apply to a particular pur- 
pose or use, and thus to hestoiv. 

oou^idevationp, if nothing else, would restrain me from saying anything in the slight- 
eat possible degree unkind in regard to him, or of the paper which he has sent to 
us. But, sir, if all these considerations were out of the way, m^ own self-respect 
would always induce nie to speak of the President of the United States, and of any 
paper which he may send to either House of Congress, with becoming respect and 
consideration. 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL— PRESIDENT PIERCE'S VETO. 857 

Todd. — Dispose : To employ to various purposes ; to diffuse ; to give, 
to place ; to hestoiv. 

To dispose of: To apply to any purpose ; to transfer to any otlier 
purpose or use ; to put into the hands of another ; TO give away by 

AUTHORITY. 

Webster. — Dispose : To apply to a particular purpose ; to give ; to 
bestow, as, You have disposed much in public piety. In this sense, " to 
dispose o/" is more generally used. 

To dispose of: To give away or transfer by authority. 

Walker. — To dispose of: To apply to any purpose; to put into the 
hands of another ; to give away by authority. 

Now, sir, if Congress has the power to dispose of the public lands, 
and if " to dispose of" means as Richardson, Johnson, Walker, Todd, 
and Webster, all agree it means, to give, where is the want of power to 
give these lands for the benefit of the indigent insane ? 

The power to give having thus been conferred in express terms by the 
Constitution, there can be no limitation to the use of that power other 
than this, that it shall not be used for a purpose inhibited by the Con- 
stitution in express terms, or by fair implication. 

There is no pretence, that the purpose of this bill is inhibited by the 
Constitution in express terms. The inhibition must therefore be sup- 
plied by implication, if at all. I shall undertake to show that there is 
nothing in the Constitution, or outside of the Constitution, which being 
fairly construed supplies any such implication. 

The President has undertaken to show, first, that the Constitution 
itself, not in terms but by fair intendment, prohibits such a gift as that 
proposed in the bill ; and, secondly, that the deeds of cession from New 
York, Virginia, Massachusetts, and North Carolina, in more express 
terms, prohibit it. On both points the President and myself differ. 

The President says the bill proposes to make provision for an eleemo- 
synary purpose within the several states, and that " this presents the 
question at the threshold as to whether any such act on the part of the 
federal government is warranted or sanctioned by the Constitution." 
The point here presented is not that Congress cannot provide for an 
eleemosynary institution, because it is such an institution, but that Con- 
gress cannot provide for such an institution in the states. I am war- 
ranted in saying this, because the President clearly admits that it is 
within the competency of Congress to provide for an institution of this 
character in the District of Columbia — his language being, "if Congress 
have power to make provision for the indigent insane without the limits 
of this District, it has the same power to provide for the indigent who 
are not insane, and thus to transfer to the federal government the charge 
of all the poor in all the states." 

I respectfully submit that the President has not met the question 
fairly. We propose to give the lands, and instead of meeting us on the 
question as to whether we have the power to make the gift, the Presi- 
dent attacks the object of the gift, and on the ground that this object 
is located without the range of constitutional legislation, to wit, in the 
states. I grant that Congress has no express authority or warrant in 
the Constitution " to make provision for an eleemosynary purpose ivithin 
the states ;" but has Congress any express warrant or authority to make 



So3 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

provision for colleges, schools, and railroads witliin the states ? Clearly 
not ; and yet I shall show before I get through that the President has 
very distinctly indicated that all these come within the range of consti- 
tutional legislation. 

I shall presently inquire by what warrant the Congress gives lands to 
schools, colleges, railroads, to build houses, and drain swamps, in the 
states, and shall then endeavor to show that the same Constitution which 
Sanctions these grants also sanctions grants to lunatic asylums. 

For the present let me pursue the argument of the President — " It 
cannot be denied," he says, "that if Congress has the power to make 
provision for the indigent insane," &c., "it has the same power to pro- 
vide for the indigent who are not insane." Granted; but has the Pre- 
sident well considered the difference between the mere possession of a 
power and the necessary obligation to exercise that power ? Because 
Congress has the power to do a thing, it by no means follows that Con- 
gi-ess must do it. Congress has the power to order the building of six 
or sixty steam frigates, and it has exercised that power so far as to order 
six ; it does not follow that it must order the building of sixty. 

The President speaks of idiotcy physical diseases, and extreme desti- 
tution, and says, " If Congress may and ought to provide for any one 
of these objects, it may and ougjit to provide for them all." This is 
saying that if Congress has the power to do one thing and does it, then 
Congress is bound to do everything else that it has the power to do. 
Now, I may think that Congress may and ought to declare war against 
Spain — and if she does it, I should by no means conclude that she may 
and ought to declare war against England. If Congress has the power 
to give, it may give to a class stricken mysteriously by an inscrutable 
Providence, without imposing on itself any sort of obligation to give to 
those who have fallen victims to their own bad passions, or to the laz- 
zaroni who have been or may be poured upon our shores from the jails 
and pest-houses of the old world. 

The argument of the President, it seems to me, amounts rather to a 
strongly expressed apprehension that the power may be abused, than to 
a logical conclusion of its non-existence. The fear that a power may be 
abused may justify a cautious use of it, but it will not prove that it docs 
not exist. The power to declare war is one of fearful import ; it may- 
be absurd. Congress may declare war against England ; to-day it 
would be an abuse of power ; but it would not prove that the power did 
not exist, and notwithstanding its abuse to-day, it may be rightfully 
used to-morrow. 

The President tells us he will not discuss the question of power some- 
times claimed under the general welfare clause of the Constitution, 
because he conceives the question of power under that clause to have 
been well and wisely settled. He thinks Congress has the " power to 
lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises," m order "to pay 
the debts" — and in order "to provide for the common defence and 
GEXERAL WELFARE." In all this I quite concur with him; but as no 
one, to my knowledge, ever claimed authority under this clause of the 
Constitution to pass this bill, and as the President's remarks on this 
point do not seem to me to meet the argument as presented by the 
friends of the bill, I do not clearly perceive the purpose for which they 
were introduced. 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL— PRESIDENT PIERCES VETO. 350 

I cannot but think the President gives a wider range to his fears than 
the facts warrant, when he sajs : — 

" If the several states, many of which have already laid the foundation of muni- 
ficent establishments of local beneficence, and nearl^^ all of which are proceeding to 
establish them, shall be led to suppose, as they will be should this bill become a law, 
that Congress is to make provision for such objects, the fountains of charity will be 
dried up at home, and the several states, instead of bestowing their own means on 
the social wants of their own people, may themselves, through the strong temptation, 
which appeals to states as to individuals, become humble suppliants for the bounty 
of the federal government, reversing their true relation to this Union." 

I have a better opinion of the states than is here indicated. In my 
opinion " the fountains of their charity" are not more likely to be 
'" dried up" by grants of land for the benefit of the insane, than is their 
passion for learning to be extinguished by similar grants for school pur- 
poses ; nor is a state more likely to become " an humble suppliant for 
the bounty" of this government, when she receives a small quantity of 
land for the relief of suffering humanity, than she is when she receives 
a larger quantity for internal improvements and other purposes. We 
have seen that grants of land for school purposes have not "dried up" 
the passion for learning in the states, but have stimulated it, and caused 
it to flow in a steadier and a bolder stream ; and though our tables 
literally groan under memorials from state legislatures, praying for 
lands in aid of their several railroads" and other local projects, we have 
accustomed ourselves to think it all right, and the states have remained 
in blissful ignorance of the fact that they were fast becoming " humble 
suppliants for the bounty of the federal government." 

Passing from this part of the message, we come at once to the Presi- 
dent's comments on the third section of the fourth article of the Consti- 
tution. It is from this section that we derive our authority to pass this 
bill. " The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all 
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property 
belonging to the United States." Such is the language of the instru- 
ment; and if its terms are not limited by some other language in the 
same instrument, it seems to me there can be no doubt that we may dis- 
pose OF the land for the benefit of the insane. The President has re- 
course to the sixth article of the Constitution, to wit : that " all debts 
contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this 
Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this 
Constitution as under the Confederation." This article, he thinks, limits 
the powers we might otherwise have under the third section of the fouith 
article. 

Now, sir, this power to dispose of the public lands is a clear, distinct, 
separate, and substantive grant of power, not dependent on anytliing 
else, and not the incident of any other grant. The sixth section of the 
Constitution, in my opinion, imposes no limitation on the grant. The 
"contracts and engagements entered into" before the adoption of the 
Constitution, and which were declared to be " as binding on the United 
States under the Constitution as under the Confederation," referred not 
to the deeds of cession from Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and 
North Carolina, but to other and very different contracts and obligations. 
They refer more especially to the " contracts and obligations entered 
into" by the Continental Congress for the support of the army of inde- 
pendence ; and as the structure of government was undergoing a change, 



360 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

it was meant to impose on the new constitutional government the debts, 
contracts, and engagements of the old Continental Government. Some- 
thing of this kind was necessary to secure the creditors of the govern- 
ment against loss, and to give assurance to the world that the public 
faith should be preserved. 

I do not, myself, see the limitation which the sixth section imposes 
on the third section of the Constitution. But the President does. He does 
not, it is true, say in terms, that one of these sections limits the other. 
But he introduces arguments to prove it, by asserting, in substance, that 
the " contracts and engagements" referred to in the sixth section of the 
Constitution, had special reference to the deeds of cession from Virginia 
and other states to the United States, and the obligations therein im- 
posed; and that a strict observance of these obligations is inconsistent 
with the idea of " disposing" of the lands by gift. I might, perhaps, 
successfully protest against being required to construe the Constitution 
by an- instrument which, though cotemporaneous with it, is not a part 
of the Constitution, and is not necessarily connected with it. The Con- 
stitution ought to be construed, interpreted, and administered by what 
is written on its face ; and where the w^riting admits of one, and only 
one, clear and distinct interpretation, that interpretation ought not to bo 
destroyed or nullified by a resort to extraneous matter. 

But, I want to meet the question fully and fairly, and in every one 
of its presentations ; and therefore, I admit, for the sake of the argu- 
ment, that the President may be right. The deeds from all the states, 
I believe, are substantially the same. The President introduces the one 
from Virginia, and for the reason, I presume, that it meets the point 
made by him more fully than any of the others. It was executed in 
1784, and its material part is as follows: — 

"That all the lands within the territory of the United States, and not reserved for 
<ir appropriated to any of the before-mentioned purposes, or disposed of in bounties 
to the officers and soldiers of the American army, shall be considered a common fund 
for the use and benefit of such of the United States as have become, or shall become, 
members of the Confederation or federal alliance of the said states, Virginia included., 
according to their usual respective proportions, in the general charge and expendi- 
ture, and shall be feithfully and bona fide disposed of for that purpose, and for no 
other use or purpose whatsoever." 

The President, as I understand him, takes the ground that the stipu- 
lations of this deed are part and parcel of the " contracts and engage- 
ments" alluded to in the sixth section of the Constitution ; and that the 
attempt to give ten millions of acres of land to the indigent insane being 
in violation of these stipulations, is consequently in violation of the sixth 
section of the Constitution, and, therefore, void. I think this a proper 
conception of the President's position. I know that I have meant to 
state it fairly. 

Now, sir, suppose that this deed was actually a part of the Constitu- 
tion ; that instead of having the power to dispose of the lands without 
limitation, as I think we have under the Constitution, we had only the 
power to use them as a common fund for the use and benefit of such 
of the states as belong to the Union, Virginia included, could we not 
even then pass this bill ? Do we propose to employ this common fund 
otherwise than for the use and benefit of all the states ? The lands 
are spoken of as a common fund in the deed. These lands or common 
funds to the amount of ten millions of acres, we propose to divide 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL— PRESIDENT PIERCE'S VETO. oGI 

among the several states, in a compound ratio of geographical area and 
representation in the House of Representatives. Now, if we so use 
them, is not the use for the benefit of all the states of the Union, 
Virginia included ? Mark you, the language of the deed is, that the 
land " shall be considered as a common fund " for the use and benefit 
of all the states. When you take a part for the use of schools in a 
few states, another part for the use of railroads in other states, and 
another part for the use of swamp drainage in other states, as you have 
done time and time again, are you employing a common fund for the 
use and benefit of all the states ? Of what use or benefit is a common 
school in Mississippi to the state of New York? And how is Massa- 
chusetts benefited by draining a swamp in Arkansas ? If there be a 
resulting use and benefit to the old states, in giving lands to the new 
states, how much more apparent will this use and benefit become, if 
you give the lands directly to the old states themselves ! 

To my mind this is the first land bill ever brought forward in the true 
spirit of the deeds of cession. It is the first bill that ever proposed to 
divide the land among the states having in them a common interest, 
share and share alike. The bill, to say the least, embodies an equitable 
principle. It awards a common fund among the parties in iiiterest, 
and says in plain terms to the old states, and to the new, that which 
we hold for the use and benefit of each and every one of you, shall not 
be employed for the use of one to the exclusion of another. 

But, admitting this interpretation of the deeds to be correct, what 
becomes of all the lands acquired by conquest and by purchase ? They 
certainly are not under the control of the deeds of cession from Vir- 
ginia, Massachusetts, New York, the Carolinas, and Georgia. All the 
territory west of the Mississippi river, including Oregon, Washington, 
Utah, and New Mexico, and the unsold lands in Louisiana, Arkansas, 
Missouri, and other states west, was acquired otherwise than by those 
deeds of cession. Is the power of Congress more ample over these 
lands than over the unsold lands in Mississippi, Alabama, and the other 
states lying within the cessions from the old states ? It must be so, 
or else the whole argument based on these deeds falls to the ground. 
For by no torturing of language can a deed from Virginia or Massa- 
chusetts be made to cover lands bought from France or Spain, or con- 
quered from Mexico. 

I am a new state man, and I am a just man. And I now say to the 
new states, you have no right to take from the common fund for col- 
leges, for schools, for railroads, for swamp drainage, and for other 
special purposes of your own, and then say to your older sisters, you 
shall have no part for any purpose of yours. The old states having a 
common interest in a common fund, have said to their younger sisters, 
take from this fund for colleges, schools, railroads, swamp drainage, 
and for other purposes, and we have taken accordingly. Shall we now 
say to them it is unconstitutional for you to take for any purpose. Can 
we say so in honesty and in good faith ? Can we receive for our schools 
and deny to the old states for their asylums? And if we do, will it 
not look as if the violation of the Constitution consisted, not in using 
the common fund for the particular purpose designated in this bill, but 
rather in its application to the use and benefit of the old states ? Who 
doubts that it is just as constitutional to endow a lunatic asylum in 



362 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Mississippi as to endow a college or university in that state ? Who 
questions that if Congress may give lands to Illinois to educate sane 
children, it may give lands in the same state to protect insane children ? 
And can it be that Congress may apply " a common fund " held for the 
use and benefit of all the states, to the use and benefit of new states, 
to the exclusion of the old states? This must be assumed as true, or 
else it follows irresistibly that the lands being the common fund, and it 
being constitutional to give to Mississippi and Illinois, it is equally 
constitutional to give to North Carolina and Virginia. And then again, 
unless it shall be shown that it is unconstitutional to endow a lunatic 
asylum per se, it will follow that if you can give to a college in Ala- 
bama from the common fund, you may give to an asylum in Delaware 
from the same fund. 

I think it hardly necessary to dwell upon the argument of the Presi- 
dent, based on the pledge of the government to devote these lands to 
the payment of the public debt. With an overflowing treasury, and the 
government constantly seeking sources of expenditure, it will hardly 
strike the bondholders or any one else, that there is a violation of faith 
in disposing of these lands in the mode proposed. If any of the bond- 
holders feel uneasy about the securities, they have only to present their 
bonds at the treasury and receive their money. 

The same argument employed by the President now, was employed 
b)'' others when the bounty land bill was under consideration, and with 
greater force than now, for at that time the public debt was more than 
twice its present size, and we had an empty treasury. It did not avail 
then, and I know of no reason why it should do so now. 

The President respectfully submits, that, in a constitutional point of 
view, it is wholly immaterial whether the appropriation be in money or 
in land. I think differently. The Congress has no power to dispose 
of the money but for purposes named in the Constitution. It has the 
power "to dispose of" the land for purposes that are not named in the 
Constitution. It follows that Congress holds its authority over the 
money by one tenure, and its authority over the land by another, and 
so I apprehend it has always been considered. Jefferson, Madison, 
Monroe, Jackson, and Polk, have all signed bills giving lands to roads, 
canals, schools, colleges, and other objects that were purely local in 
their character, and does any one suppose that either of them would 
have approved bills appropriating money to these objects ? 

The purposes named in the Constitution for which money may be 
used are to pay the debts and to provide for the common defence and 
general welfare. The President's reading of the money clause is cor- 
rect. He reads it thus : " The Congress shall have the power to lay 
and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, m order to pay the 
debts, and m order to provide for the common defence and general 
welfare." Congress does not provide for the general welfare when it 
takes charge of a local interest, whether it be a road, a school, or an 
asylum. Objects that are general and not local may alone receive the 
patronage of the government under the money clause. 

The framers of the Constitution clearly intended that the national 
exchequer should be supplied by taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, 
and as no provision was made for raising money from the sale of lands, 
and no purpose designated to which the money, when raised from such 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL— rRESIDENT PIERCE'S VETO. 3GS 

sales, should be applied, it may be well questioned whetlier it was ever 
contemplated that tlie lands should be sold. I know that the deeds 
of cession from Virginia and other states point to objects for which 
the money may be applied, but I speak now of the Constitution and not 
of the deeds of cession. 

When, however, the lands are sold and the money is paid into the 
treasury, it becomes part and parcel of one treasury, and can only be 
used as money raised from taxes, duties, imposts, and excises may be 
used, m order to pay the debts, and in order to provide for the common 
defence and general welfare. Before it is sold, while it is yet land, it 
may be disposed of not alone to pay the debts, and not alone to provide 
for'the common defence and general welfare — there are no such words 
in the land clause of the Constitution — but it may be disposed of for 
any purpose not inhibited by the Con"fetitution. It is one thing to dis- 
pose of the money in order to pay the debts of the government, and it 
is another thing simply to dispose of the public lands. I respectfully 
submit, therefore, that the President is mistaken in supposing that Con- 
gress has the same power to appropriate money that it has to appro- 
priate land. 

Indeed, the President admits, in the very next paragraph of the 
message, that there is some distinction between property in land and 
property in money. Speaking of the public domain he says : — 

" As property, it is distinguished from actual money chiefly in this respect : that 
its profitable mauagemeut sometimes re([uiros that portions of it be appropriated to 
local objects, in the states wherein it may happen to lie, as would be by any prndent 
]iroprietor to enhance the sale value of his private domain. All such grants of land 
are, in fact, a disposal of it for value received." 

It is here distinctly avowed that a portion of the land may be so 
applied as to increase the value of the remainder. In other words, that 
a section of land may be given to a railroad, if the gift enhances the 
value of the adjoining section. Now, if there is no difference between 
appropriating land and appropriating money, and you may apply a 
thousand acres of land to a railroad because you thereby double the 
value of another thousand acres, I respectfully inquire why we may not 
apply a thousand dollars in money, if the effect should be to render 
another thousand or the same thousand of double value. Recollect you 
have the power, according to the message, to give the lands only, 
because the gift increases the value of other lands, and the President 
sees no difference between giving lands and giving money. It follows, 
therefore, if giving money will have the same effect in increasing the 
value of money that giving land will have in increasing the value of 
land, you may give the one or the other as you please. It thus becomes 
a simple question as to whether you will invest land or money. 

With the same power to appropriate money as land, the President, I 
dare say, Avould not approve a bill appropriating money to construct a 
railroad in a state, though that road might make all the land within six 
miles of it of double value, and yet he would approve a bill appropri- 
ating one-half the land to the same road, simply because, the road being 
constructed, the other half is double in value. By giving money and 
building the road you get double price for all the land and have the 
road into the bargain. By giving land to a company you only get 
double price for half the land and have no road. The power to give 



364 ALBEIIT G. BROWN. 

the one being equal to the power to give the other, it would seem best 
to give the money. 

It appears to me, Mr. President, that we are likely to be involved in 
a labyrinth of difficulty and perplexity, for the simple reason that we 
have neglected to observe properly the distinction which the Constitu- 
tion itself makes in our powers over the land and over money. The 
one we may dispose of for purposes which are not named ; the other we 
may dispose of for purposes which are named, to wit, to pay the debts 
and provide for the common defence and general welfare. 

The President, after speaking approvingly of the land grants hereto- 
fore made to the new states (and for which I thank him very cordially), 
adds, "all such grants are in fact a disposal of it for value received." 
This brings me to the consideration of a material point in this argument. 
Grants have been made, as I have said, more than once, to roads, canals, 
colleges, schools, and other objects in the new states. All such grants, 
we are told, have been for value received. Value received from whom ? 
Not from the grantees? To them the grant was a naked, unqualified 
gift; they paid nothing, did not promise to pay anything, and did not 
guarantee that anybody else should pay anything. They were gifts in 
the broadest, fullest, and most comprehensive sense of the term. They 
were lands conveyed in fee simple to parties who paid nothing. The 
consideration, the value, if any was ever received, came from other par- 
ties than those to whom you gave the land. Now, we either had the 
power to make these gifts, or we had not. If it exists in the Constitu- 
tion, we have it independent of any consequences or results that may 
follow its exercise. The fact that one section of land is doubled in 
value, by giving away another section, may be a very good argument to 
justify the use of an actual existing power. But, I submit that it does 
not and cannot by possibility supply a power that does not already exist. 
If I have no power to give one section, it is useless to tell me how much 
the gift will enhance the value of the next section. My answer simply 
is, I have no power to give at all. If I have the power, then it may 
be very well to urge as an argument, to justify the use of it, that if I 
give one section I make the next one worth as much as both. 

If Congress has the power to give lands to railroad companies (and 
I think it has), it may exercise the power at discretion. But, if it has 
not the power, it is difficult to perceive how it is obtained by simply 
charging a bona fide purchaser double price for the lands you sell him. 
To give as a reason for charging a settler two prices for his home, that 
you have given lands to a railroad company, is bad enough in all con- 
science ; but to assert that Congress obtains a constitutional right to 
give lands to railroad companies, by the simple process of charging the 
squatters two prices for their homes, is hardly respectful to the human 
understanding. If we have the power to give, it exists as an indepen- 
dent substantive proposition ; and if we have not the power it is not 
acquired by any argument however plausible, or any legislative expedi- 
ent however cunningly devised. 

The President regards the bill as appropriating ten millions of acres 
of land to an eleemosynary purpose, within the limits of the states, and 
he questions the warrant of the Congress to make such an appropriation ; 
not because it is made for an eleemosynary purpose, as I understand 
him, but because it is made for such a purpose within the limits of the 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL— PRESIDENT PIERCE'S VETO. 365 

States. This is evident, as I have before said, from the fact that in the 
very next sentence he admits that, within the District of Columbia we 
may make appropriations for eleemosynary purposes. 

The argument, then, is not that you cannot make an appropriation 
for the benefit of insane asylums because they are asylums, but because 
they are state institutions. Now, let us test the soundness of this logic, 
by what appears in the message elsewhere. The President says, on page 
six of the printed paper, that the profitable management of land may 
sometimes require us, as prudent proprietors, to appropriate a part of it 
to local objects in the states where it lies. That the mind of the Presi- 
dent in penning this sentence was directed to the land grants heretofore 
made for railroad, college, school, and swamp purposes in the states, there 
can be no question. Has Congress any more right to patronize, by a 
gift or grant, a railroad, a school, or college, or to drain a swamp, in a 
state, than it has to patronize, by a gift or grant, a lunatic asylum in a 
state ? What is the diff'erence between patronizing an eleemosynary 
institution in a state, and a common school or college in a state ? One 
is purely local, and sb is the other, and one is no more specified or pro- 
vided for in the Constitution than the other. If Congress may patronize 
by a gift an eleemosynary institution in this district, as the President 
admits, it may do the same thing in a state, unless there is something 
in the relations between the states and the Federal Government that 
forbids it. And I submit, with diffidence and respect, that if there be 
anything in that relation which forbids us to patronize an eleemosynary 
institution in the states, there must be that, also, which forbids our 
patronizing a college in a state. If it be said that the college is exclu- 
sively under the control of the state, I reply that the eleemosynary 
institution is also exclusively under the control of the state. 

If Congress may give lands to railroads, schools, colleges, and other 
purely state institutions, there can be nothing in the argument that lands 
cannot be given to asylums or other institutions, simply because they 
are within the limits of the states. 

The President lays great stress on the assumed fact that we are only 
authorized to dispose of the lands as a prudent proprietor would dispose 
of his own estate. Very well ; let us examine the soundness of this 
position. I have never asserted, myself, that the United States was the 
proprietor of the land; I have only maintained that she was the trustee 
of the states. If she is the proprietor, it needs no argument, it seems 
to me, to prove that she may give, or sell, or lease, or abandon, as she 
pleases. But if she be a trustee, then I grant that she must administer 
the estate as a prudent proprietor would administer his own property. 

We have seen in the past that lands have been given to various pur- 
poses, and the President gives us plainly to understand, that as a pru- 
dent proprietor he would approve of the gifts, and say that Congress had 
the power to make them. Now, suppose that the President was the 
prudent proprietor of a million of acres of land in Wisconsin, and that 
he had appointed my friend, the senator from that state [Mr. Walker], 
his trustee, with power to dispose of the lands as a prudent proprietor 
would dispose of his own estate. The senator sells a part at auction and 
some at private sale, and the President approves his acts, saying, " that 
was prudent; you had the power to do that." He gives some to a rail- 
road, and the President approves that ; he gives some to a college, some 



366 ALBERT^iG. BROWN. 

to common schools, some to build a court house, and some to drain 
swamps; the President looks over the whole, and says: "this is as a 
prudent proprietor would have done with his own estate. You had the 
power to do all this, and I approve it." Then the senator gives a little 
to an insane asylum ; the President says : " I must resist the deep sym- 
jyathics of my heart in behalf of the humane purposes of this gift. But 
it is not as a prudent proprietor would have managed his own estate ; I 
DISAPPROVE IT." Now the question is, could he consistently say that? 
When he conferred the power to make the first grants, he conferred the 
power to make the last, and when he approved of its exercise in the first 
cases, he necessarily commits himself to an approval in the last. He 
may disapprove if he chooses, but not on the ground of power. 

Suppose that the Constitution, instead of giving Congress the power 
simply to dispose of the territory, had said that Congress may dispose 
of the territory as a prudent proprietor would dispose of his own estate, 
who in that case would be the judge of what was a prudent disposition ? 
Congress, unquestionably. I do not mean to say that the President 
could not, in such a case, exercise the veto ; but I do say that he could 
not put it on a question of power. He would be compelled to put it on 
a question of expediency. He could not say that Congress had no right 
to give away the lands, for it often happens that a prudent proprietor 
does give away his own lands. He might say that giving it to the indi- 
gent insane is not a prudent disposition of it, and veto for that reason. 
But this, I apprehend, would raise a question of expediency, and not a 
question of constitutional authority. Congress has power to levy taxes. 
It may levy excessive taxes. But there is not a court in Christendom 
that would declare the act unconstitutional on that account; and why? 
because the abuse of power does not affect the question of its existence. 
I fancy, therefore, that the President, to say the least, has placed the 
veto on the wrong ground. Instead of denying to Congress the consti- 
tutional right to pass this bill, he ought to have assumed that its passage 
was an abuse of power. How far the President would be justified in 
interposing his judgment against the judgment of Congress on a mere 
point of expediency, is altogether another question. He has the power 
to do it if he chooses. 

The President, in speaking of certain grants heretofore made, says : 
" All such grants of land are in fact a disposal of it for value received, 
but they afford no precedent or constitutional reason for giving away the 
public lands." I admit that giving to a school does not oblige us to give 
to an asylum. But I must insist that the same constitutional reason 
that would justify us in giving to one, would justify us in giving to the 
other. And I think, moreover, that the President is mistaken in assum- 
ing that a giving to one aff"ords no precedent for giving to the other. If 
we have the same right to give to one that we have to the other, then 
giving to the one does afford a precedent for giving to the other. 

The President assumes that, in disposing of the lands by grants to 
various objects, we have heretofore enhanced the value of the remaining 
land. I have already shown that this enhancing the value of one parcel 
of land cannot amplify our constitutional powers over another parcel. 
But suppose it could, is it true in point of fact that these grants have 
always enhanced the value of the remaining lands? When Congress 
gave two townships of land to Mississippi, and many others to the other 



o 



INDIGENT INSANE BILL— PRESIDENT PIERCE'S VETO. 367 

new states, to endow colleges or universities, what lands were increased 
in value thereby ?— none within my knowledge. It may be that the 
existence of colleges and universities in the states encourages settlements, 
and that thereby a chance is held out that the lands will sell at a better 
price. And if this be the argument, I reply that the existence of an 
asylum for the insane is just as likely to induce settlements, and thus 
increase the value of the lands, as is the existence of a college to do the 
same thing. 

I have thus far omitted to speak of the bounty land grants to soldiers 
in connection with this subject. Regarding that act as depending for 
its constitutionality on the same clause of the Constitution that justifies 
this, and as being in all respects more like this than any other, I have 
chosen to consider it separately. The bounties to soldiers were, and 
are, in every legal sense, gratuities, naked gifts. The soldiers entered 
the army on a contract to perform certain specified services for a specific 
sum of money. They have performed the services and received their 
pay, and most of them have been forty years out of the army. They 
had been paid off and discharged, thirty, forty, and fifty years ago. 
The government owed them nothing; and yet Congress gave them each 
a tract of land, forty, eighty, or one hundred and sixty acres. Was 
this done to increase the value of other lands? Was this justified on 
the ground of prudent proprietorship ? Was this for the use and benefit 
of all the states ? No, sir, no. It was done as an act of gratitude to 
the brave men who fought our battles. It was justified on the ground 
that we could dispose of the public lands as we pleased, and it was for 
the use and benefit of the old soldiers, and for no one else. If we could 
give fifty millions of acres on the score of gratitude, why may we not 
give ten millions on the score of charity? The grant to the soldiers met 
my warm approval, and had my cordial support. It was an act o^ justice, 
not of legal obligation. The act before us had my approval and support 
also. It, too, is one of justice, not to individuals, but to states. I defend 
its constitutionality on the same ground that I defended the first act, 
ahd its justice on the further ground, that it divides the land equally 
among the parties having a common interest, and for the praiseworthy 
purpose of protecting those who are unable to protect themselves. 

I here leave the message, and recur for a moment to the history of 
this bill in its passage through the two houses of Congress. It has twice 
passed the House, and twice the Senate. It first passed the Senate, 
February 12, 1851, by a vote of 36 yeas to 16 nays, and was sent to 
the House, where it was defeated by the rigid enforcement of the rules. 
Once the rules Avere suspended, yeas 105, nays 50, more than two-thirds ; 
but the House proceeded to other business, and again, on a motion to 
suspend that rule, so as to allow the bill to pass, the yeas were 108, and 
the nays 70. It will thus be seen that in 1851 there was not only a 
majority of more than two to one in the Senate in favor of the bill, but 
a majority of about two to one in the House also. In 1852 the bill was 
again before the House, and passed by a vote of 98 yeas to 54 nays, 
almost two to one. This session it passed the Senate again, yeas 25, 
nays 12, and was sent to the House and there passed, yeas 81, nays 53. 
It will thus be seen that, before the Senate and before the House, both 
being Democratic by large majorities, this bill has uniformly commanded 



368 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

two- thirds of the votes in one house, and nearly two-thirds in the 
other. 

It so happened that the bill has not passed both Houses at the same 
session, or during the same Congress, until now, and, therefore, it was 
never before sent to the President for his approval. 

Amoncf the Democrats who have voted on this bill at one time, or at 
another, I find the names of Borland, of Arkansas ; Downs, of Louisi- 
ana ; Norris, of New Hampshire; Rusk, of Texas ; Shields, of Illinois; 
Sould, of Louisiana; Sturgeon, of Pennsylvania, and others of the 
Senate; and in the House, Bissell, of Illinois; Cobb, of Alabama; Gil- 
more, of Pennsylvania ; Ingersoll, of Connecticut ; Peaslee, of New 
Hampshire; Polk, of Tennessee; Churchwell, of Tennessee; Dawson, 
of Pennsylvania ; Florence, of Pennsylvania ; Seymour, of Connecticut; 
Smith, of Alabama; Harris, of Alabama; Beale, of Virginia; and 
maaiy others. I mention these things to show that if there was error in 
passing this bill, it was an error very common among Democrats. Nor 
can it be said that the constitutional question was not raised. It was 
raised in both Houses, and as fully discussed as senators and repre- 
sentatives chose to discuss it. I speak on this subject after a careful 
inspection of the record. Mr. Borland defended the constitutionality 
of the bill in the Senate, and he has been sent abroad. Messrs. Soule, 
Peaslee, and others of its friends, have received the highest marks of 
the President's consideration and confidence. 

The President refers to two acts heretofore passed by Congress, which 
he admits furnish precedents for the passage of this bill. One of 
these is an act passed March 3, 1819, granting a township of land to 
the deaf and dumb, in Connecticut; and the other is an act passed April 
5, 1826, making a like grant to the Kentucky asylum for the education 
of the same unfortunate class. It is worthy of remark that the lands 
thus granted were necessarily located outside of the states of Kentucky 
and Connecticut. And were in this, as in all other respects, granted, 
just as we propose to grant these lands, and for an object very similar 
to this, not, I think, so praiseworthy. 

The President admits that these are precedents, but adds, they should 
" serve rather as a ivarning thnn as an inducement to tread in the same 
path." I entertain the highest respect for the opinions of President 
Pierce; but he will excuse me if I say that precedents set by such men as 
James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, Wm. H. Crawford, James K. Polk, 
James Buchanan, Wm. R. King, Edward Livingston, Levi Woodbury, 
Geo. McDuffie, and others, do not serve as warnings to me, unless it be 
the warning that the beacon gives to the mariner. Those great men 
were bright and shining lights ; their example has illumined the path 
we are now treading. Mr. Monroe was president, and approved the 
act of 1819. Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Crawford were members of his 
cabinet, and all the others, as senators or representatives, voted for 
one or the other of the bills spoken of by the President. 

If, in following the lead of Democratic presidents. Democratic secreta- 
ries, ambassadors, and senators, who have attained to the highest honors 
in the republic, and enjoyed the highest places in the confidence of the 
people, I have been led into error, I hope my error will find an easy 
pardon at the hands of my constituents. 

I have now, Mr. President, performed an unpleasant duty. It would 



ALIEN SUFFllAGE. 369 

have given me great pleasure to have found my vote sustained by the 
President; but I could neither abandon the vote I had given, nor the 
convictions which justified me In giving it, because the President refused 
to sustain what I had done. I have felt called upon to defend my course. 
This I have done ; how perfectly, is left to time and the public judgment 
to decide. It has been my studied purpose to avoid everything that by 
possibility could be construed into an attack upon the conduct of the 
President. If he Is right, the Constitution has been happily saved from 
violation. If he is wrong, time will correct his error. But whether 
right or wrong, I have not a word to say against the purity of his mo- 
tives. He had his convictions, and he has acted on them, and I am not 
the man to Insinuate that he has been moved thereto by any other than 
the highest considerations of duty to the country, and devotion to the 
Constitution. 



ALIEN SUFFRAGE. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATER, MAY 25, 1854, ON THE 
QUESTION OF ALIEN SUFFRAGE, IN CONNECTION WITH THE 
KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL. 

Intending to vote for the amendment of the senator from Maryland, 
I wish to assign very briefly the reasons why I shall do so, advertising 
the Senate, however, that I have no speech to make on this bill. 

The fifth section of the bill provides : — 

"That every free white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years, who 
shall be an actual resident of said territory, and shall possess the qualifications herein- 
after prescribed, shall be entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to 
any office within the said territory, but the qualifications of voters, and of holding 
office, at all subsequent elections, shall be such as shall be prescribed by the Legis- 
lative Assembly : Provided, That the right of suffrage and of holding office shall be 
exercised only by citizens of the United States" — 

Now comes the part proposed to be stricken out : — 

" and those ivlio shall have declared on oath their intention to become such, and shall 
have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the provisions 
of this act : And provided further, That no officer, soldier, seaman, or marine, or other 
person in the army or navy of the United States, or attached to troops in the service 
of the United States, shall be allowed to vote or hold office in said territory by reason 
of being on service therein." 

If the section passes as it stands, It Is, beyond all question, that foreign- 
ers in the territory, and not being in the service of the United States, 
may vote, no difference what may have been their character abroad, or 
what their Inducement to come here — however discreditable to the coun- 
try from which they came, they have nothing to do but to make a bare 
declaration of their Intention to become a citizen, and take an oath to 
support the Constitution, to entitle them to vote; while American citi- 
zens, who have been so from their birth, and whose characters are above 
reproach. If they are In the military service of their country in these 
territories, will, bv the same act, be denied the right to vote. I ask 
24 



370 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

senators to pause before they legislate to give foreigners rights which 
are denied to our own citizens upon American soil. How will this act 
operate practically, if you pass it in the words in which it now stands? 
The officers commanding your army, the soldiers who are serving under 
your banner, and who are placed upon your frontiers to defend your 
women and children from the tomahawk of the savage, will be denied 
the elective franchise, while the thousands and tens of thousands who 
are pouring upon our shores from every part of God's habitable globe, 
will be entitled to that sacred privilege. Why, sir, if Santa Anna should 
be expelled from Mexico to-morrow, as he may be, and should take up 
his residence in one of these territories, he may vote the day after he 
gets there, if this bill passes ; and Winfield Scott, whose name is em- 
blazoned on every page of his country's history, and whose impress is 
on every battle-field from the St. Lawrence to the city of Mexico, if he 
was there stationed at the order of the President, would not be allowed 
the same privilege. I ask honorable senators if it is not so, that by 
the proposed legislation we are about to say to the General-in-chief of 
the American army, you shall not vote in a territory conquered by 
your arms ; and to the deserter from the enemy's camp, you may vote ! 
Shall we do this? Shall we say to the venerable soldier who has served 
his country for forty years, who has fought more battles, and fought 
them better than any living man, shall we say to Winfield Scott, who, 
whatever may be his faults as a politician, deserves his country's grati- 
tude, you shall not vote in Kansas or Nebraska: and then shall we say 
to the outcasts of the Old World, to the wanderers and vagabonds, to 
the prison-birds and spawn of infamy, you may vote? I hope not. Let 
no man charge that I am hostile to foreigners. We invite them to our 
shores, and I would receive them kindly and treat them generously; but 
when I am asked to stand up in the American Senate and give to 
foreigners the right of suifranrc, and in the same breath deny it to Ame- 
rican citizens, I say plainly I cannot do it. 

I have heard before of putting foreigners on equal footing with Ame- 
ricans, but this is the first time when I have been called upon to give 
them an advantage. And what is the reason assigned ? Look at the 
])ill. No officer or soldier of the army shall be allowed to vote in the 
territory by reason of his being on service there. It is sufficient for his 
exclusion from the polls that he bears his country's arms, that he en- 
counters the dangers of the camp, and the perils of the battle-field. But 
a foreigner — Avhat of him ? He may spurn your arms, insult your fiag, 
spit upon your laws ; and then say he means to become a citizen, and 
swear to support your Constitution, and you let him vote. A thousand 
soldiers, with Scott or Wool at their head, may be ordered to Nebraska 
the day after this bill passes, and not one of them can vote. By reason 
of being on service in the territory they are excluded ; while a thousand 
foreigners, just landed, may vote, and the next day abandon the terri- 
tory for ever. For, mark you, they are to declare their intention to 
become citizens of the United States — not of Nebraska. Just think of 
Scott or Wool, at the head of a thousand Americans, guarding a thousand 
Irish or Dutch against Indian assaults while they vote, and then guard- 
ing them on their march out of the country, and hear Pat or Ilaunce 
blessing this land of liberty, where foreigners vote and Americans look 
on in silence ! 



ALIEN SUFFRAGE. 371 

I am told, sir, by way of alarm on this subject, that If the bill is sent 
back to the House it will be lost. I have had no evidence of that ; and 
if I had, I would not be so alarmed as to do that which my judgment 
does not sanction. I am here as an American senator, to vote upon my 
responsibilit}' ; and I must do it with the aid of such lights as are before 
me. Mr. President, we are to-day making up a record which will be 
looked to by coming generations. What do we every day? Why, sir, 
we go back to the records of the past, and inquire what those have done 
who went before us ? Do we always examine into the reasons which 
influenced the votes ? No, sir. Senators get up and say, on a question 
which they claim as a precedent, so many voted in the affirmative, and 
so many in the negative. When the present passes away, this vote will 
be recorded against you ; and you will be told, that here, on the 25th 
day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
fifty-four, the American Senate, deliberately, upon a motion to strike 
out this provision, refused to do it by so many jeas to so many nays, 
thereby declaring to all the world, that foreigners may vote on a bare 
declaration of intention to become citizens of the United States and an 
oath to support the Constitution ; while a citizen soldier may not, by 
reason of his being in his country's service, do the same thing. This is 
the precedent you are making to-day. The Chinese have a proverb, 
That curses, like chickens, come home to roost. I pray that this pre- 
cedent may not come home to us, in after time, with the double power 
of a political curse. 

Sir, the interests, the rights, the honor of my constituents are to be 
put at hazard on this vote. I have already said our own citizens, if 
they are soldiers, will be denied the right to participate in the proceed- 
ings in these territories in any manner, shape, or form. If we have a 
thousand American citizens there, and they happen to be soldiers, they 
are to stand off and see their rights and interests committed to foreign- 
ers. These foreigners may have no interest in your country, may not 
have read its Constitution, and may be wholly incapable of feeling any 
attachment for our institutions. I call upon senators to reflect before 
they proceed further in this business. I tell you this record will be 
brought up in future time, just as the records of our ancestors are brought 
up now ; and our descendants will be told that, because we did this to- 
day, they may do it in all time to come. I am not unbalanced by this 
appeal to our fears. The House of Representatives may not do its duty; 
but that does not prove that we must fail to do ours. I intend to do 
ray duty, and if others fail to do theirs, let each member be responsible 
to his conscience, to his constituents, and to his God. 

Again, I have been told that a certain class of senators will now vote 
to strike out this provision, though they sustained it before, with the 
view of embarrassing the bill. I do not know what these gentlemeifc 
mean to do. I am not in their company or confidence. I have had no 
consultation with them ; but they will show that on this, or on a former 
occasion, they failed of acting from conscientious convictions, if they 
give the vote suggested. When the motion was formerly made by the 
senator from Delaware [Mr. Clayton], they all voted against it ; and if 
they go for it now, merely that they may embarrass the bill, their mo- 
tives will be subjected to severe criticism. I do not believe they will; 
I know nothing about it ; but, whatever they may do, I mean, as I said 



372 ALBERT G. I)RO^\ N. 

before, to discharge mj duty as an American senator. I want these 
abolition gentlemen to understand distinctly that I am not to be chased 
about from one side of the bill to the other, just as they think proper 
to shape their coui-se. If I vote for a proposition and they against it, 
when they come in favor of it I am not bound to be against it — there is 
no consistency in that. While I arraign the motives of no man, call no 
man's motives in question, I think there is precious little judgment in 
acting on a policy of that kind. Let us all act upon our honest, con- 
scientious convictions of what is right. 

I said, in the beginning, that I had no speech to make on this subject, 
and I have none; but I cannot reconcile it to my sense of right to vote 
for a proposition which gives to a foreigner, I care not who he may be, 
or under what circumstances he may come to our shore, the right to vote 
in these territories, and then deny the same right to any American citi- 
zen who may happen to be in the territory in the service of the country 
as a soldier or officer in the army. I will not, I cannot do that. I do 
not say that if the amendment fails I shall vote against the bill. Ever 
since I came into Congress I have been the firm and steadfast opponent 
of this Missouri restriction. Nay, sir, ever since I raised my voice as 
a politician, from my earliest service as a public man, I have warred 
against the measure as a great and monstrous outrage upon the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and upon the rights and honor of the 
southern people. I am prepared to make many and very great sacrifices 
to get clear of this odious restriction ; to vote for many things of which 
I cannot approve, by way of getting clear of it. But I am here asked 
to retain this alien provision ; and the vote is to be taken on this propo- 
sition separately and distinctly. It stands by itself, and is to be valid, 
to the exclusion of everything else. Now, our votes are to stand in all 
after-time as an indication of our sentiments on this particular section 
of the bill, separately and distinctly. Is it right in itself, and by itself? 
That is the question ; and honorable senators will see at once that it is 
a very important question, 

I know very well that frequently a bill like this, covering, as this 
does, thirty-seven pages of printed matter, and making in one of our 
daily newspapers some seven or eight columns, may pass without every 
member being able to scrutinize and examine every provision in it ; but 
when a matter of this sort is brought up in bold relief before you, with 
a clear and distinct proposition to strike out a particular section, and 
the mind of every senator is drawn distinctly to the language of it, it 
must be some great, powerful, overruling influence which would justify 
any senator in refusing to give his vote to strike it out, if, in his heart, 
he thinks it wrong. I have seen no such influence. I apprehend that, 
if the bill goes back to the House of Representatives, they will either 
agree or disagree to our amendment. If they disagree to it, a committee 
of conference is the necessary consequence ; and if, in the end, we must 
yield sooner than lose the bill, that will be another proposition. With- 
out a single member of the House being committed on this question in 
any shape or form, so far as the voting shows, am I to be told that 1 
must swallow this bitter pill, gulp it down, and not say a word against 
it, for fear of endangering the success of the bill? I feel none of that 
sort of apprehension ; for you have the balance of this year before you 
in the Senate. There is no press of time. The session is not going to 



THE KANSAS BILL. 373 

close in two or three days, and thus cut us off in the midst of our delib- 
erations on this or other questions, I have heard no reason assigned 
yet why this bill may not as well pass with this provision stricken out 
as with it in. All these things whispered around the chamber, whicli 
we hear outside of the debate, will be lost to posterity, and nothing will 
remain of this transaction but the votes which we put upon the record. 
I put my vote there. I want it to be a vote I can stand by to-morrow, 
next year, and the year after, and which my children can stand by when 
I shall be in my grave. 

It is said the bill will certainly be lost if it goes back to the House. 
I do not believe it. There is not one particle of evidence to sustain it. 
Its friends are in a majority there ; and if they are not, the bill ought 
not to pass. If the bill were ten thousand times better than it is, I 
would not have it become a law against the will of a majority. 

I shall, for the reasons stated, and without detaining the Senate longer, 
vote for the amendment, but with no purpose to destroy the bill. I have 
given as much evidence as most senators that I am its friend. Things 
have been put into it which are objectionable to me. I have never 
denied, every one knows, that the proviso moved by the senator from 
North Carolina [Mr. Badger] was distasteful to me. The amendment 
proposed by the author of the bill was not exactly to my notion. I took 
it all, however, and went for the bill. But when I am asked, by a 
separate and distinct vote, to sanction the kind of legislation embodied 
in this particular section now proposed to be stricken out, I must have 
stronger reasons than any I have yet heard, or I will refuse to do it. 
To vote for this section by itself is one thing ; to vote for it along with 
the repeal of the Missouri restriction is another, and very different thing. 



THE ka:\^sas bill. 

CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE KANSAS BILL, IN THE SENATE, 

MAY 25, 1854. 

It now lacks only ten minutes of eleven o'clock. Of course I do not 
intend, at this late hour, to detain the Senate with any further remarks 
on this bill ; nor do I design to offer any amendments. But I do not 
mean that the bill shall pass without my saying to the Senate and to 
the country that there are two amendments which I intended to have 
proposed if the Senate had not already indicated, in distinct terms, that 
it is resolved to pass the bill in its present form. I am not going to run 
counter to the sentiment of the Senate ; but when I have a clear and 
distinct opinion upon any subject, I am willing to express that opinion 
before the Senate and before the world ; and having a clear conviction 
upon my mind that there are at least two defects in this bill, I wish, be- 
fore the vote is taken, to point them out. I am willing that it may 
stand upon record, for me or against me, through all time, that I thought 
these were defects. The first is in the fourteenth section of the bill. 
After speaking of the Missouri compromise, it says : — 



•"574 • ALBERT G. BROWN. 

" ^Yhich, being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention liy Congress 
with slavery in the states and territories, as recognised by the legislation of 1850, 
commonly called the compromise measures, is hereby declared inoperative and , 
^oid." 

I intended to move to strike out the words which relate to the compro- 
mise measures of 1850 from the word " with," in line twenty-three, to the 
^ word "is," in line twenty-six, and insert "the Constitution of the 
United States," so as to make it read : "which, being inconsistent with 
the Constitution of the United States, is hereby declared inoperative 
und void," I would much rather stand by the Constitution than by the 
compromise. I have much more respect for the Constitution than for 
the compromise. I need not say that I never have been for that com- 
promise, am not for it now, and never expect to be for it. I have been 
tor the Constitution, am for it now, and ever expect to be for it. I 
acquiesce in the compromise of 1850, just as we all did in the compro- 
mise of 1820, without approving it. 

The next amendment which I intended to propose, was an addition to 
the proviso moved originally by the senator from North Carolina [Mr. 
Badger]. I will read that proviso : — 

" Pi'ovided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to revive or put in 
force any law or regulation which may have existed prior to the act of 6th March, 
1S20, either protecting, establishing, prohibiting, or abolishing slavery." 

I intended to move to add these words : — 

"And that no law of Congress, or law or decree of any foreign government in force 
on the 1st day of August, 1850, shall bo so construed as io protect, establish, iwohihit, 
or ubolisli slavery in any of the organized territories of the United States." 

It will be seen at once that my object would be to extend the terms 
«jf the proviso moved by the senator from North Carolina to all the 
organized territories of the United States. I have not seen, I do not 
now see, any reason why we should make a distinction between Kansas 
or Nebraska and Utah or New Mexico, between Kansas or Nebraska 
and Washington or Oregon. Slavery is prohibited in Washington and 
Oregon by the direct action of Congress. It is as positive legislation on 
the part of Congress as was the act of 1820. It was approved by a 
Democratic president ; but it never received the sanction of my vote. 
Then, sir, if the laws of France or Spain, in force in Kansas and Ne- 
braska at one time, clearly and distinctly protecting slavery, are to be 
repealed, I know of no reason, founded in sound judgment, why we 
should not apply the same rule to Utah and New Mexico, and repeal the 
Mexican law abolishing slavery in those territories. 

If it be true that the act of 1820, prohibiting slavery north of 36^ 
30', and in the country now called Nebraska, has become inoperative 
and void, I know of no reason why the same thing has not occurred in 
the country north of the same line, and known as Oregon and Washing- 
ton. If Congress had no power to pass the prohibitory act of 1820, 
excluding slavery from Kansas and Nebraska, it had none to pass the 
more recent act of 1849, excluding it from Oregon. If we are called 
upon to repeal the first, we are equally called upon to repeal the last. 

And again, if it is right to declare that the laws in force prior to the 
tith of March, 1820, PROTECTING, prohibiting, establishing, or abolishing 
slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, shall not be revived, the truth being 
that these laws did protect slavery, I know of no reason why the law^ 



ALIEN SUFFRAGE. 375 



existing prior to 1850, either by Mexican legislation, as in Utah and 
New Mexico, or by our own legislation, as in Oregon and Washington, 
should not be repealed, the fact being that these laws prohibit slavery. 
I want to see the laws in all the territories reduced to a uniform stand- < 
ard on the subject of slavery. 

I shall not, at this late hour of the night, when I know that senators 
are impatient to take the vote, press these considerations upon the 
Senate. But I cannot forbear saying that, with these two amendments, 
the bill would have been much more acceptable to me than it is in its 
present form. With them, and with the amendment which has just been 
voted down, it would be entirely acceptable to me. I have voted in 
favor of the amendment of the senator from Maryland. I now look 
upon the provision which it proposed to strike out, as I look upon other 
provisions in the bill, as pernicious. The provision does not meet the 
sanction of my judgment. But, sir, there is a great overruling and con- 
trolling principle established in the bill, which commands my vote in 
despite of all the objectionable features embodied in it ; and that is, 
that it proposes to abrogate the odious Missouri restriction — a restriction 
which, six years ago, and as often as I have had occasion to speak of it 
since, I declared to be in violation of the Constitution, in derogation of 
the rights of my constituents, and an insult to the whole southern peo- 
ple. By no deed or word of mine can I sanction, or seem to sanction, 
the continuance of that act upon the statute-book. I shall, therefore, 
notwithstanding its objectionable features, still vote for the bill. I 
think it is due to myself, and not at all disrespectful to gentlemen who 
disagree with me, to say, that with the amendments I have suggested, 
the bill would be more acceptable to me than it is in its present form. 



ALIEN SUFFRAGE. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, JULY 10, 1854, ON ALIEN SUFFRAGE. 

Mr. President : I may vote against striking out this section. I rather 
think I shall ; and I wish to submit one or two observations in explana- 
tion of my present views. I do not put the construction upon this sec- 
tion which other senators have placed upon it. My reading of it is not 
the same as theirs. It provides : — 

" That if any individual, now a resident of any one of the states or territories, and 
not a citizen of the United States, but, at the time of making such application for the 
benefit of this act, shall have filed a declaration of intention, as required by the natu- 
ralization laws of the United States, a»,d shall become a citizen of the same before the 
iiisuance of the patent, as made and provided for in this act." 

" As made and provided for in this act." Take that language in con- 
nection with the rest of the bill, and what do we ascertain ? The bill 
elsewhere provides that the patent shall issue at the expiration of five 
years. It is "made and provided" that it shall do so. It is clear to 
ray mind that if an alien born seeks the benefits of this act, he can ob- 
tain them only on the condition of his perfecting his citizenship in the 



376 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

five years. The act only proposes to bold the land in reserve for him 
five years. In that time he may complete his citizenship, if he chooses. 
If he fails, he loses all rights under the act. lie cannot receive the 
title, because, having had the opportunity of becoming a citizen compe- 
tent to receive it, he has voluntarily declined doing so. The means are 
"made and provided" for him; and if he rejects them it is his own 

fault. 

I think the construction placed upon the section by some senators, 
that a foreigner may continue to reside on the land without becoming a 
citizen, is not sustained by the language of the section. If he has filed 
his declaration of intention to become a citizen, and shall actually be- 
come so within the five years, a patent shall issue to him, just as though 
he were a native-born citizen. That is all that the section means, 
according to my reading of it. If he fails to become a citizen, at the 
expiration of the five years, he cannot receive the title, and government, 
having complied with its part of the engagement, may, and doubtless 
will, sell the land to any one else who may offer himself as a purchaser. 

Now, sir, a few words as to granting lands at all to foreign-born 
people. I am, perhaps, as much opposed as any gentleman in the Senate 
to conferring political rights on foreigners, as long as they are such ; 
but when they have been naturalized, when they have been, by our laws, 
placed upon the same footing with American-born citizens, then, and 
then only, am I ready to admit them to all the rights of citizenship. 
But, sir, during this session of the Senate we have made a very marked 
exception to that general rule. We have, by the almost unanimous vote 
of the Senate, authorized, in the two important territories which we 
have just organized — Kansas and Nebraska — foreign-born people, who 
are not yet citizens, to vote, and we have admitted them to all the poli- 
tical rights of our own native citizens. And now, sir, shall we hesitate 
when we are asked simply to allow these same people to settle upon a 
piece of public land ? How can the mere fact of a foreigner settling 
upon a bit of land affect the political prosperity or property of the coun- 
try? How is it going to affect the political rights of our people? His 
settlement there does not give him the right to vote; it does not give 
him the right to hold office ; it confers upon him no political authority. 
And as far as the mere occupancy of the soil, it no more affects the 
rights of native-born citizens, or the political rights of the country, one 
way or another, than if the man were back in Germany or in Ireland. 
It is the right of suff"rage, the right to vote, and to hold office by the 
votes of other foreigners like himself, that interferes with our people and 
our politics. 

We get a marked advantage from having laborers employed on the 
public lands ; and the labor of a foreigner is quite as productive as though 
he were a native-born citizen. Every bushel of corn that he raises, 
every bushel of wheat, every ounce of produce of every kind which he 
makes by his labor, enters into the general wealth of the nation, and to 
the same extent as though he were a native-born citizen. Then, I say, 
that so far as this bill goes, you grant him no right except the mere 
right of occupying the land and cultivating it ; and, in return for this, 
he gives you all that a native-born citizen would give you ; he gives you 
the products of his labor as an addition to the general wealth. I 
cannot, myself, see the propriety of first admitting foreigners to all the 



ALIEN SUFFUAGE. 377 

political rights of American-born citizens, and then stopping short when 
you are only asked to allow them to occupy and cultivate the wild lands 
of the West. If they are are fit to vote and hold office, I hardly think 
we shall be seriously damaged by allowing them to mingle their labor 
with the soil which we allow them to govern. If they do any part of 
the voting, I am for getting as much work out of them as possible ; and 
if they have a fancy for cultivating the soil, I am clear for letting them 
do it. 

I think there is a manifest propriety, Avhen you have admitted a man 
to political rights, that you should provide for him in some way a home ; 
and that, too, at the cheapest rate at which it can be supplied. What is 
your interest, sir; what is manifestly your interest towards these people 
whom you have allowed, by your legislation, to vote in Kansas and 
Nebraska ; and, I believe, in all the other territories ? It is to settle 
them down, to make them permanent inhabitants of the country, to stop 
their roving disposition, to get them out of your cities and towns, and 
identify them as early as possible with the soil. That, I believe, is our 
true policy. If I could have had my way, I never would have admitted 
these people to political rights until they had been here long enough to 
learn something of our laws, long enough to learn and study and under- 
stand our Constitution ; but the policy of the country, as marked out by 
the two branches of the legislature, and sanctioned by the President, has 
been different. It has been to admit them to all the rights of citizen- 
ship, so far as voting and holding office in these territories are concerned. 
Now, I am not going to stop short and say to a man, " though you may 
have the same right to vote as a native-born citizen ; though you have 
the same right to hold office as a native-born citizen, you shall not have 
the same right to occupy the land ; though you may govern, you shall 
not occupy the soil." I see no propriety in this— no reason for it. Why, 
sir, I w^ould rather any sort of a foreigner should occupy a quarter sec- 
tion of land than it should be occupied by a wolf or a bear. I would 
rather that any sort of a foreigner, who would cultivate it, should occupy 
it, than a savage. And this upon the principle which I have already 
stated, that his labor is just as valuable as though it were the labor of a 
native-born citizen. It is worth as much, and the products of it will sell 
for as much in the market, and go as far in subsisting the country. 
According to the bill, you do not give him a title until he is a citizen, 
and made so according to the laws of the land. When he is made a 
citizen, then, I say, not only in reference to this, but in reference to all 
other rights, I am for putting him upon a footing with natives-born. 

It is said many of these emigrants are bad men ; doubtless, this is 
true. But will he be made a better man by keeping him in a city or 
town ? The best thing that can be done with a bad man is to put him 
to work, and, as long as you can keep him at it, he will be out of mis- 
chief. 

Upon the broad principle that one man's labor is as good as another's 
in raising corn, wheat, cotton, rice, or tobacco, I am willing to see every 
foreigner go to work on the public lands. When he becomes a citizen 
in the regular Avay, I would admit him to all the rights of a citizen, 
political as well as others. I would not give him the title until he 
became a citizen ; but if he wanted to work the land, I would tell him to 
go ahead. It would make a better man of him j and when he came to 



378 ALBERT G. BROAVN. 

be a citizen, he would love the land all the more in which he had mingled 
his sweat. 

You committed a grievous fault when you authorized foreigners to 
vote and govern the country. You cannot atone for it by refusing them 
the right to work the land which they govern. 



Note. — By reference to page 573, another speech of Mr, Brown on the same sub- 
ject, in connection with the Minnesota Bill, will be found. 



GKADUATION BILL. 

REMARKS IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JULY 20, 1854, ON THE 
GRADUATION BILL OF MR. HUNTER OF VIRGINIA. 

Mr. President : The proposition of the senator from Virginia presents, 
in my opinion, the most stupendous land scheme that has ever been 
presented to the American Congress. It proposes, by one single stroke, 
to give up the authority of this government, over about one billion five 
hundred million acres of land. 

Mr. Clay. If the states will accept. 

Mr. Brown. My friend from Alabama suggests " if the states will 
accept." That is a suggestion which it is scarcely worth making, be- 
cause we know they will accept. When you have passed this bill, the 
authority of Congress over the public lands will be extinct in the states. 
I believe the territories are excluded. Now, sir, in deference to the 
opinijon of my friends on this floor, being a new state man, coming from 
a state which is to derive benefits from the passage of this proposition, 
I shall vote for it ; but here on this evening, at six o'clock, I protest, 
that if any evil is to come of it, it must be charged to my friends and 
not to myself. I have had no opportunity of investigating in detail 
a great scheme like this, the most magnificent and the most stupendous 
that has ever been brought before Congress ; a scheme which it ought 
to take months and months to deliberate upon. 

Why, sir, the proposition of the senator from Virginia has eleven 
sections and thirteen provisos. There are thirteen separate and distinct 
limitations to the granted powers. What they all mean, I say again, 
as a common county-court lawyer (and I never aspired to any higher 
reputation), I have had no opportunity of weighing and deliberately 
considering. I doubt whether there is a senator on this floor, except 
the senator from Virginia, who has had any opportunity, or, having it, 
has been able, in this extremely hot weather, to avail himself of that 
opportunity of weighing and examining this proposition as it ought to 
be don6, considering the magnitude of the interests involved. Other 
schemes propose to parcel out the public lands in very small quantities ; 
but here you have a great and magnificent scheme which divides out the 
whole at one single leap. 

I feel that I ought to pause and weigh my mind long in the balance 
whether I ought not to vote against this proposition, at least until I 
shall have had time to consider it. But, in looking around the cham- 



GRADUATION BILL. ' 379 

ber, I find my friends disposed to go for it. I hope it will turn out 
well; but I notify you, gentlemen from the South and West, and from 
the land states particularly, if this turn out to be a political iniquity, I 
wash my hands of it now. Charge part to the senator from Virginia, 
and the greater part to the men from the new states. 

A great portion of the public lands in the old congressional district 
which I had the honor to represent, in the other House, and to whose 
people I am under deep and lasting obligation, are interested in this 
proposition. They were entitled to buy their lands at $1.25 an acre. 
Congress granted alternate sections to a railroad running through that 
district, north and south, and increased the price of the reserved sections 
to $2.50 an acre. Scarcely a mail comes to me from Mississippi which ' 
does not bring some complaint of the gross injustice of that act. Now, 
sir, when you are reducing the price of the adjoining lands to twenty- 
five, and even as low as twelve and a half cents an acre, am I to stand 
here and see those people oppressed by the exaction of $2.50 an acre 
for their lands? Shall a man who lives within six miles of a railroad 
be required to pay $2.50 an acre for his land, and he who lives six 
miles and a quarter from it, be allowed to take his at twelve and a half 
cents ? Within the distance to which the railroad provision applies, I 
want you to apply your graduation principle. Why should not the 
reserved sections be graduated as other lands are graduated, if the 
graduation be right in point of principle? If you are to reduce a 
quarter section of land outside of the six miles to twelve and a half 
cents an acre, why shall you not reduce the quarter section inside of 
the six miles to twenty-five cents an acre ? I want to have some sensi- 
ble reason for that. You have acted upon the principle that the build- 
ing of a railroad has doubled the price of the land, so as to make it 
worth $2.50; but you have now come to the conclusion that the lands 
shall be reduced one-half in value or four-fifths in value. Why shall 
you not reduce that land as well as the other ? I am not asking you to 
reduce the land within the line of the railroad below the double value ; 
but to reduce it as you reduce the other lands. If you ask twenty-five 
cents an acre for lands outside of the six miles, then ask fifty cents an 
acre for land of the same class within the six miles. If you ask but 
twelve and a half cents outside of it, then ask twenty-five cents inside 
of it. Let the same scale of graduation apply everywhere. 

I cannot consent, sir, that my hardy constituents, the pioneers of the 
country, those who have lived there, and felt the oppression of your 
legislation heretofore ; who have never received the benefits of your 
raUroad projects ; who have only felt your policy in doubling the price 
of the lands, shall now have their land kept up at twenty times its 
value. Mark you, you are reducing the land outside of the six miles 
to twelve and a half cents an acre, but you are keeping the land with- 
in the six miles at $2.50 an acre, which makes twenty times as much 
inside of the six miles as outside of the six miles. I want to know 
where is the propriety, where is the reason, where is the logic, which will 
justify conduct like that? I ask, in moving this amendment, that you 
shall apply the same scale of graduation inside of the six miles, on 
either side of the railroad, which you apply outside of the six miles. 
Outside the six miles you sell at twelve and a half cents, inside you 



380 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

should ask no more than double that sum — since it is on the principle of 
doubling the minimum that you made the grant. 

In reply to Mr. Yulee he said : — 

I think I understand the argument of ray friend from Florida per- 
fectly. We have made grants to railroad companies, and have promised 
that we shall charge double the price for the remaining sections, there- 
by, as it seems, granting to them that they should sell their sections at 
$2.50 an acre ; in other words, that we would not undersell or force 
their lands into the market at low prices. Then the whole question is 
narrowed down to a controversy between the people and the railroad 
company ; and in that controversy, I am free to say, I take the side of 
the people. I want railroads built. I want railroad companies to pros- 
per ; but never shall I stand up here, or elsewhere, and advocate the 
interests of a railroad company at the expense of my laboring and toil- 
ing constituents. If a railroad is to be built by wringing from the pock- 
ets of my laboring constituents their hard-earned money, they may 
remain unbuilt till the latest hour of time, so far as I am concerned. 
The whole argument of my friend from Florida resolves itself into the 
point, that because we have entered into some sort of an engagement 
with a railroad company, we must not undersell them. We must not 
do it for fear we violate faith ; and though we may reduce the price of 
the public lands in favor of everybody else, yet to those hapless people 
who reside within six miles of the railroad, we will not m'ake any reduc- 
tion whatever. I am unwilling to sanction any such proposition by my 
vote. I am willing to aid railroads, but I come here not to represent 
railroad corporations, or railroad monopolists, but as the representative 
of that portion of the American people who live in the state from which 
I come, and to their interest I will be faithful, come what may, and let 
the railroads go to where they choose. 



On the 7th May, 1856, Mr. Brown spoke on the subject of titles 
under the Graduation Act, as follows : — 

I submit the following resolution, and I ask for its immediate con- 
sideration : — 

Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire into and 
report what legislation is necessary to secure the United States against fraudulent 
entries under the graduation act, and what is necessary to quiet titles of purchasers 
under said act. 

There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the reso- 
lution. 

Mr. Brown. I wish to submit a few words of explanation before the 
vote is taken on the resolution. The Department of the Interior, through 
the General Land Office, has issued two or three circulars in reference to 
entries under the graduation act of August, 1854. Their design is a 
good one — to protect the government against fraudulent entries under 
that act. The intention of Congress in passing that law was to secure 
its benefits to actual settlers on the public lands. Doubtless in some cases 
speculators have been engaged in making entries, through third persons, 
for their own benefit, which certainly never was contemplated by the act; 
but the Land Office has issued circulars, the efi"ect of which has been to 
disquiet the titles of all who have entered lands under the graduation 



GRADUATION BILL. 381 

act. One circular required all persons who made such entries to come 
forward within two months and purge their entries of fraud, by making 
certain additional affidavits, not prescribed bv the law, but by the regu- 
lations of the department. A second circular extends the period within 
which they may come forward with additional proof to twelve months. 
The effect of this upon the bona fide purchaser has been to throw a shade 
over his title. The law has not forbidden him to sell the land if he 
has entered it in good faith, for his own use, and not for purposes of 
speculation ; but if he finds it to be to his advantage to sell, he cannot 
now do so because of the shade thrown over his title by the orders from 
the department. 

I object to these orders for another reason. "While the law did not 
lay down any rules which should establish fraud in the entry of land, 
the department has undertaken to lay down a general rule, and to make 
it apply to all entries, whether good, bad, or indiflFei-ent. Every man 
who has entered land under that act is required, by an order of the 
department, to come forward in twelve months and do certain things, 
and in default of doing them he is notified that his entry will be vacated 
and a patent withheld. Why ? Not because all the entries are supposed 
to be fraudulent ; not because one-tenth part of them can, by any pos- 
sibility, be fraudulent ; but because the department has a suspicion — 
probably a well-grounded suspicion — that some entries are fraudulent, 
it applies this rule to all who have entered under the law. The bona fide 
purchaser, who has complied in good faith with the requisitions of the 
law — who has done his whole duty in good faith, is required to do pre- 
cisely what the man who enters in bad faith and in fraud of the law is 
called upon to do. 

I do not pretend to say what ought to be done ; but I do declare that 
honafide, honest purchasers ought not to have their titles thus disquieted 
by suspicion being thrown over them. They ought not to be disturbed 
in their peaceful and quiet possession of the property which they have 
purchased, and for which they have paid all that the government de- 
manded of them, and this on a simple order from one of the depart- 
ments of the government. 

I desire that the committee on public lands shall inquire what legis- 
lation is necessary to secure the government against fraud. If it be 
found that the principles embodied in these orders are necessary, let us 
enact them into law ; let Congress pass a law embodying these orders 
in the form of a congressional enactment, and rescue parties who hold 
good titles from the distui'bance imposed upon them by mere orders from 
the land department. At the same time, if anything can be done to 
relieve bona fide, honest purchasers and settlers from the suspicion 
thrown over their title by the orders from the department, I wish it to 
done, and done promptly. My constituents are writing to me constantly 
of the effects which these orders are producing on their titles. They 
feel insecure. They are put to the trouble sometimes of going consider- 
able distances to make new affidavits at additional cost to secure their 
title, after they have done everything which the law requires — after they 
have paid their money and received their certificate. 

So far as I am concerned, I do not believe that these orders amount 
to anything. I have no idea that the general land office or the interior 
department has the right to lay down a general rule by which it will 



882 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

determine fraud and vacate titles which are acquired under an act of 
Congress by purchase. What right has the land office to say to me, 
after I have complied with the law, paid my money, and received my 
certificate, that if I do not come forward and do something else which 
is not required by the law, but is simply prescribed by the land office, 
they will vacate my title ? The proposition, I feel assured, cannot be 
maintained legally ; but the consequence of this state of things is to 
cause a great deal of disturbance to settlers who are actual, bona fide 
purchasers. It is for the purpose of putting an end to those disturbances 
that I ask this inquiry. 

In reply to Mr, Stuart, Mr. Brown said : — 

I certainly did not mean to be understood as unnecessarily or even 
severely criticising the course which the Secretary thought it his duty to 
pursue. He doubtless has done what he thought was right. I differ 
from him. I think that the action of the department shows that the 
department itself is not very harmonious on the subject. First, a circu- 
lar was issued, requiring these additional affidavits to be made within 
two months. When that circular has had the effect of disturbing the 
title of the purchaser, the department finds out that the time allowed is 
too short, and extends it to twelve months. That time I think too short; 
I consider any time whatever too short. 

My friend from Michigan seems to think that it is the patent which gives 
a man a title to his land. I differ with him on that point. It is the 
act of purchasing and paying the money under the law, and in accord- 
ance with the requirements of the law, that gives the purchaser his title. 
The patent is but the evidence of a title already acquired and possessed. 
I have no idea that, when A or B has purchased a tract in accordance 
with the law, the department has a right to lay down rules subsequently 
which will vacate his title, unless it be first established that the purchase 
was made by fraud. I grant you that fraud will vitiate the purchase, 
and will overturn the title. What I object to, however, is laying down 
a general rule by which fraud is to be presumed and adjudged against all 
parties, whether they are honest or dishonest. If my friend had gone 
forward and made a bona fide purchase, complying with all the regula- 
tions which had been made previous to the time of his entry, I hold that 
he would get a good title against the government, and against the world. 
If his neighbor went forward and made an entry in fraud of the law, he 
would have a defective title — or rather no title at all. But you must 
first establish the existence of the fraud before you can overturn his 
title. What I object to in these circulars is, that they lay down a general 
rule by which the department arrives at the conclusion that fraud has 
existed in all cases. That rule is, that unless a man comes forward and 
complies with certain requirements within twelve months, the depart- 
ment will adjudge the entry to have been fraudulent, will set it aside, 
and refuse a patent. That, I say, they have no right to do. If the 
committee and Congress shall judge that to be proper in the premises, 
let us enact it into a law. I object to the department making laws. I 
do not mean certainly to charge that the Secretary intended to do it, but 
I mean to say that such is my judgment of the transaction, and that the 
action of the department has had the effect of disturbing the quiet of 
hundreds, and I may say thousands, of my constituents, who have pur- 
•hased land under this law, honestly and in good faith ; but they will 



c 



JOINT COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS. 383 

not be able to comply with these rules, or, at any rate, compliance with 
them will be attended with a great deal of trouble. These are the 
reasons why I desire to have this inquiry made. 
The resolution was agreed to. 



JOINT COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 19, 1854, ON 
HIS PROPOSITION TO ESTABLISH A JOINT COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS. 

In pursuance of notice given yesterday, I now introduce a resolution 
providing for an additional joint rule of the two Houses : — 

Resolved, (the House of Representatives concurring), That the following be added 
to the standing rules of the two Houses of Congress: — 

There shall be appointed a standing committee of the Senate to consist of seven 
members, and another of the House of Kepresentatives to consist of thirteen members, 
to be called, in each House, the General Committee on Claims. It shall be the duty 
of said committee in the House of Representatives to report a bill at each session of 
Congress making appropriations for the payment of private claims. When the several 
committees of the House report in favor of any claim, the report, with the evidence 
on which it is based, shall be referred, and without debate and as a matter of privi- 
lege, to the said General Committee on Claims, and if that committee, after due 
examination, concur in said report, they shall insert an item for the payment of said 
claim in the bill for the payment of private claims, and thereupon submit a report 
and the evidences to the House to be printed, or otherwise disposed of as the House 
may direct. When the bill aforesaid is reported from the House to the Senate, it 
shall forthwith be referred to the General Committee on Claims in the Senate, and 
they shall proceed to insert therein such items as may in like manner in the Senate 
as in the House have been reported from the several committees, and have received 
also the sanction of said General Committee. The said bill, before its final passage 
in either House,' shall be read by sections, and a separate vote taken on each sectitm 
or item, and this notwithstanding the previous question may have been moved and 
seconded. In the order of business, the bill for the payment of private^ claims shall 
have precedence over other bills, next after the general appropriation bills. 

I do not propose at this time to discuss that proposition, but if the 
Senate will indulge me, I will make a remark or two in reference to it, 
and then move its reference to the select committee which was appointed 
yesterday, and to which the bill of the senator from Pennsylvania was 
referred. I do not believe that that bill will at all meet the purpose 
contemplated by its advocates. The difficulty with us in reference to 
private claims has not been that we do not get investigation and reports 
upon them. The difficulty has always been in the other House of Con- 
gress, in procuring action upon the bills and reports after they have 
been made. That difficulty cannot be relieved in the mode proposed. 
Why ? When you establish your board of claims they will go on to 
investigate such claims as may be presented to them, make their reports, 
and return their evidences to Congress with bills drawn by themselves ; 
and then we shall be precisely as we are now, with reports, and bills, 
and accumulated evidences, but without action on the part of Congress, 
Therefore, sir, we shall not be advanced one solitary step beyond the 
point where we are now in the great object sought by the claimants 
themselves — that is, the procuring of a final settlement and payment of 



>-> 



38-1 ALBERT G. BROAVN. 

their claims. Why, sir, if you will authorize that board, if you will put 
it in operation on the first of May, by the time that Congress meets in 
December they will have reported not less than five hundred claims to 
you, with five hundred separate bills, and in this they will simply relieve 
the committees of the two Houses of the labor of doing the same thing. 
Then will come the work which we are asked to do now, not to investi- 
gate, not to make reports, not to accumulate evidences, but to pass the 
bills. That board cannot pass bills through Congress ; they cannot 
make appropriations ; they cannot do that which is the great thing com- 
jdained of now — make the appropriations and pay the claims. 

The proposition which I submit proposes to relieve that difficulty ; 
and without going into a discussion of it, I beg to commend it to the 
attention of the select committee which was raised yesterday, with the 
hope that they will at least consider it. Having given to it a great deal 
of consideration, I think that it will relieve the difficulty under which 
we labor. It will at least procure that which we desire, and of which 
the claimants stand most in need — -positive action at each session of 
Congress on their claims, one way or the other. I cannot, for the life 
of me, see how the government is to be injured ; how is it possible for 
the government to be injured by it ? It will be seen that it is proposed 
that each item in the bill to be reported shall pass the ordeal of two 
committees in each House before it comes before the House or Senate — 
first, the committees as now organized, and then the general committee ; 
and at last the bill is to be voted upon in each House by sections or by 
items — each item being voted into, or out of the bill, according to the 
sense of the respective bodies. I do not see, therefore, that it is pos- 
sible that any fraud, any imposture, can be practised upon the govern- 
ment. But I did not rise to discuss the subject. I trust it will at least 
receive the consideration of the select committee, to whom I move its 
reference. 

The motion was agreed to. 



On the 21st of December Mr. Brown continued the discussion of the 
same subject, and in that connection opposed the proposition to establish 
a Court of Claims. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President, I have two or three objections to this bill, 
and they are insuperable. I care nothing about whether you call this 
tribunal a board of claims, or call it a court, for I have been taught to 
think that " a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;" but I am 
wholly at a loss to determine why the name of this tribunal has been 
changed by the committee, except it be for the cause, with which all of 
us are too familiar, that boards of claims have fallen under public cen- 
sure. Whenever you have had them, they have not only brought odium 
upon the country, but upon themselves. We have to-day to lament the 
wreck of many a fair reputation, on account of its connection with 
boards of claims. Did the committee expect, by changing the name of 
the tribunal, and calling it a court, that they would rescue it from public 
criticism ? Was it expected that, by calling these three gentlemen a 
court, instead of a board of claims, the people of this country would not 
dare to criticise their conduct? Or did the committee indulge in some 
iream that gentlemen called judges would be more wise and more honest 



JOINTS COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS. 385 

than if they were called commissioners? If there bo anywhere a sounder 
reason than one of these for changing the name, I should like to hear it 
assigned. I care nothing, however, whether you call this tribunal a 
board of claims, or call it a court ; it is equally liable to objection, as I 
think I can demonstrate. 

What is it that this court is expected to do ? To render judgments, 
and draw warrants upon the treasury ? No, sir. As has been well said 
by the venerable senator from Michigan, this was tried, and the country 
rejected it. Upon fair trial it was found that it would not do to permit 
the judges to draw warrants on the treasury, and I am only amazed that 
the wisdom of the Congress which passed that law failed to detect its 
unconstitutionality. We are told, in the plain letter of the Constitution, 
that " no money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence 
of appropriations made by law." The committee who reported this bill, 
with an eye to that provision of the Constitution, have undertaken to 
fulfil it — and how have they done it ? They have proposed to organize 
a court, and require that court to make investigations, to send in their 
reports and the testimony taken before them, with bills draw^n, cut and 
dried, for the action of Congress. Why, Mr. President, this much is 
done in your committee rooms, and done quite as well, and with quite as 
much fidelity, as it can be done by this court. ^ Has any one ever com-, 
plained that your committees do not investigate ? Is there any com- 
plaint here, or elsewhere, that your committees do not report ? Does 
not the table of the other House literally groan beneath the weight of 
reports and accumulated evidence brought in there by the various com- 
mittees, from year to year ? And what, sir, does all this accumulated 
evidence accomplish ? What do all these reports accomplish ? What is 
their eftect ? Simply to crowd the calendars of the two Houses of Con- 
gress with unpassed bills. When these same reports, and evidence, and 
bills shall come from this court, will Congress be more likely to act upon 
them than when they come from committees of their own body ? Is it 
expected of senators and representatives, with their obligations to the 
Constitution, and to the people, and the states, that they are to pass 
into laws whatever bills this court may think proper to draw up and 
send to them ? I ask honorable senators if that is what is expected of 
us in the future ? Is it expected that we are to take for granted that 
all is true which the court report ? Are we to take it for granted that 
their judgment is infallible 1 Are we simply to sit here and register 
that which they tell us to register? Or are we to exercise sound judg- 
ment in making appropriations under the Constitution ? If we are, 
then I ask the honorable chairman who reports this bill, how far we 
shall be advanced if his bill passes ? Shall we not be left precisely 
where we stand now, with evidence accumulated, with reports made, and 
with bills drawn, but bills not passed into laws, appropriations not made, 
and claimants not satisfied ? So far as I am concerned, I would as soon 
trust the Committee on Claims of the Senate to-day, as trust this court, 
if it were now organized. 

This, sir, is one of the insuperable objections which I have to the pas- 
sage of the bill, that it does not advance us a solitary inch in the pro- 
gress of business, unless it be taken for granted that the reports of the 
court will be infallible, and must necessarily be endorsed by the two 
Houses of Congress. 

^0 



386 ALBERT G. BROWN? 

Mr. Brodhead. Will ray friend, at this point, allow me a word of 
explanation ? 

Mr, Browx. Certainly. 

Mr. Brodhead. The honorable senator from Mississippi says he 
would trust the Committee on Claims of the Senate ; but, as the chair- 
man of that committee, I beg leave to inform him that I have not time 
to investigate the vast variety of cases which come before that committee, 
and yet properly discharge my other duties, and consider, as I ought to 
do, much larger questions. 

Mr. Brown. In that connection, to keep up the argument, allow me 
to ask the senator whether his committee, and other committees, have 
not found time to report hundreds of bills which Congress has never 
found time to pass ? and if they be not passed, what is the use of report- 
ing any more ? 

Mr. Brodhead. Mr. President, Congress may not have confidence 
in those reports, because we have not time to investigate, and to send 
out and take testimony upon the part of the government. The hearing 
before the committee is entirely ex parte. From want of time, want of 
an adversary proceeding before us, the government not being repre- 
sented, Congress may not have that confidence in our doings which they 
ought to have. ^ 

Mr. Brown. Mr, President, I have never yet heard any want of 
confidence expressed in the committees of either House of Congress ; I 
have yet to hear the integrity of one committee impeached ; I have yet 
to hear the skill or the ability of the committees impeached ; but I have 
, heard the integrity of boards of commissioners impeached, and I have 
seen, and all the world has seen, that they were either not honest, or 
were grossly careless in the discharge of their duties. 

Now, sir, suppose this court shall be organized, and it shall pass some 
such enormous claim as the Gardiner claim; will the press of this country 
be muzzled, and stand in awe of the dignity of a court ? or will they not 
speak out against it as they did against the board of commissioners which 
allowed that claim? Will public opinion stand aghast at the enormity 

* of assailing a tribunal simply because you call it a court ? No, sir ; it 
will be assailed ; it will be overthrown ; it will be covered with odium 
and disgrace, if it shall happen to commit an error of that sort. 

Again, suppose that the commission which passed the Gardiner claim 
' had sent to Congress, and we, relying — -as I suppose we are expected to 
rely — upon the wisdom, the integrity, and infallibility of such a court, 
had gone on to make the appropriation ; what would have been said of 
the gentlemen whose names were found recoried in the affirmative on 
such a proposition ? I introduce this illustration for the purpose of 
showing how necessary.' t will become for each member of the Senate and 
of the House, in protecting his own reputation, not to take these judg- 
ments upon trust, but to stand and scrutinize each and every one of 
them. If he does that, I repeat, this tribunal will not advance you a 
single inch beyond the point where you stand to-day. It may report to 
you more bills; it may give you more to do; but if you do not pass 
the bills you now have before you, are you likely to pass a larger num- 
ber under the influence of such a board or court as this ? 

You know, Mr, President (Mr. Badger in the chair), and all other 

* senators kn:3W, that I am not apt to be very particular about expense — 



JOINT COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS. S87 

perhaps I am not enough so ; but I wish now to inquire, what are you to 
pay for this tribunal ? Why, you are to pay in salaries the sum of 
^17,500 a year; you are to authorize an increase of Executive patron- 
age — and all for what? Stmply to relieve the committees of the two 
Houses of Congress from the labor of investigating and reporting upon 
these claims ; for I assert again, that is all the court is expected to do. 
The whole matter, therefore, resolves itself down to this : are you willing 
to pay this sum of money, thus to increase Executive patronage, for the 
sake of having that done which the committees can do, and now do, just 
as well ? But this is not a tithe — nay, sir, it is not a hundredth part 
of the expense of the court. The bill provides for appointing commis- 
sioners throughout the whole United States and all the territories, and 
wherever else God only knows. The power to appoint commissioners is 
unlimited. They are to be paid out of the treasury when the commis- 
sion is to take testimony in favor of the United States — and will there 
ever be a case when the government will not need testimony, and will 
not take out a commission on its side ? Is it expected that this tribunal 
is to decide on ex -parte testimony — on the testimony of the claimant ? 
If not, then a commission on the part of the government will be neces- 
sary, and necessary in every case. How much the expense will be 
increased by this proceeding, I do not pretend to know. Even if, after 
all this expense, we were to reach any profitable end ; if we were to be 
advanced a single inch in the business of legislation, I should make no 
objection to it ; but, I ask again, if the bills reported from committees 
now do not pass Congress, are these bills more likely to pass ? Why, 
sir, what do we see every day in the other House ? Bills to which no 
man on earth can make the least possible objection, in the way of argu- 
ment, have been suspended there from year to year, from session to 
session, from Congress to Congress, and yet they are not passed. If 
such bills do not pass, tell me whether the bills drawn by this court are 
likely to pass. The very moment one of them comes into the House of 
Representatives, under the rules of that House, some gentleman will rise 
up and say, "I object," and the bill will go back again upon the calen- 
dar to take a long sleep of two or three weeks, or perhaps as many 
months ; and when it comes up again, some other gentleman will say, 
" I object;" not because he knows anything about it, but' for the reason 
that he does not know anything about it ; and hence nothing will be 
gained. I maintain, then, that by this bill, you are not striking at the 
root of the evil ; you are not reaching it ; but are involving the country 
in a heavy expense, making a departure from all established principles, 
when it is apparent to those who have investigated the subject, that in doing 
so, you are not making a step in advance towards the great object of 
passing the bills and paying the claimants. 

The committee who reported the present bill have undertaken another 
very wide departure from the old precedents of the government. They 
have undertaken to say to each subsequent Congress: "You shall take 
no step backward in the progress of these bills." They have undertaken 
to say, that if this thirty-third Congress gives a private bill two readings, 
in each House, the next Congress must give us credit for it; and if it 
has been read three times in one House, and passed, and only been read 
once in the other, that House, in the next Congress, may give it one 
reading more, and at another Congress give it its final reading. I doubt 



388 ALBERT G. BROV/N. 

very much, and but for the acknowledged legal ability of the gentleman 
M"ho drew this bill, I should seriously question the authority to bind 
future Congresses in this way. Each Congress passes bills upon its 
responsibility to the Constitution and to the country. Tin's idea of 
y forcing one Congress under a legislative edict to give credit for all tluit 
has been done in the progress of a bill at preceding Congresses, is doing 
what I very much question your right to do. If this Congress passes a 
bill, how many times must it be read ? Three times in each House. It" 
the next Congress passes a bill, it must be read three times in each 
House. Is the next House of Representatives the same House that now 
exists, or is it a new House of Representatives ? 

Mr. Brodiiead. I think my friend from Mississippi misapprehends 
the tenor and meaning of the eighth section of the bill, and I therefore 
ask for its reading. 

The Secretary read it as follows : — 

'•Sec. 8. And he it further enacted, That said reports, and the bills reported aM 
aforesaid, shall, if not finally acted upon during the session of Congress to which the 
said reports are made, be continued from session to session, and from Congress to 
Congress, until the same shall be finally acted upon, and the consideration of said 
reports and bills shall, at the subsequent session of Congress, be resumed, and the 
said reports and bills be proceeded with in the same manner as though finally acted 
upon at the session when presented." 

Mr. Brown. Exactly, sir. Now, what is meant by continuing bills 
"from session to session, and from Congress to Congress," if it is not 
expected that all that we do in this Congress in reference to a particular 
bill, shall be taken into the account of its passage at the next succeeding 
Congress ; and then, if the two do not succeed in carrying it entirely 
through, the third Congress shall give to the two preceding ones the 
credit for what has been done? If that be not the purpose, aim, and 
object of this provision in the bill, the language in which it is drawn is 
vei-y much misapplied. So far as taking up a bill at a subsequent ses- 
sion of the same Congress is concerned, we do that every day. That is 
all right; but the point which I make is, that this measure requires 
that bills shall be continued from Congress to Congress, and that I 
maintain you have no power to do; at least, such is my judgment, and I, 
of course, give it with great deference. I may be mistaken, but it does 
strike me, with great force, that you have no right to do such a thing. 
At any rate, about this I am not mistaken, that this is the first time in 
the history of this government when there has been an attempt to do 
such a thing. If you can do it in reference to claims, why may you 
not do it in reference to all bills, and all other legislative business? If 
you can do it in reference to private claims, why can you not continue 
ail business from Congress to Congress ; and whatever we leave undone 
at the close of this Congress, hand over to the next, and they take it 
where we leave it ? I say this is commencing a very serious innovation; 
and if this be not the object, the language should be so changed as to 
leave no doubt of it. 

I have other objections, Mr. President, to this bill, which I will not 
detain the Senate by assigning now. The objections which I have 
stated, if I had none other, are insuperable with me, and I cannot, un- 
der any circumstances, vote for this bill. 



JOINT COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS. 389 

Mr. Hunter of Virginia having replied to Mr. Brown, he rejoined as 

follows : — 

I wish to say a few words in reply to the senator from Vir- 
ginia. He brings me to that point to which I supposed we should be 
brought in the discussion of this bill, and that is, that when the reports 
of the court are made to Congress, Congress is to pass them nem. con. 

Mr. Hunter. I did not say so. 

Mr. Brown. The senator says he did not say so, but his whole argu- 
ment went to prove it so, and I will undertake to show to the senator 
that he has come as near saying so as ninety-nine and three-quarter 
cents are to a dollar. He alluded to ray argument against the expense 
of this proceeding — and how did he answer it ? By saying that the dis- 
cussion of one private bill now consumes more money than the whole 
expense of this court would be. Are we not to discuss these private 
bills when they come from the court ? If we are, what becomes of the 
senator's argument about expense ? for the same discussion will be 
had then, I apprehend, as now. What becomes of that argument 
unless we pass the bills without discussion, which I said in the beginning 
was expected of us? 

Mr. Hunter. I will correct my friend. My argument was this : I 
hope and believe this court will entitle itself to the confidence of Con- 
gress, and will have so much of the confidence of Congress, that in 
general its decisions Avill not require revision ; that the cases requiring 
revision will be the exception and not the general rule. 

Mr. Brown. Then that is one step further in the same direction 
which I was pointing out — that this court is to have the confidence of 
Congress, as the senator expresses it, and we are to register what it tells 
us without discussion, I dare say there will be an attempt to stifle dis- 
cussion here and in the other House of Congress, and to force the deci- 
sion of the court upon us, whether we will or not. I protest, in advance, 
ao-ainst any such thing. I dare say it will be done ; but I have no doubt 
that after two or three years shall have elapsed, its proceedings Avill be 
discussed. I know they ought to be discussed from the commencement, 
because I know that the obligation of appropriating money belongs not 
to a court, but to Congress. That member of Congress who fails to dis- 
cuss or understand thoroughly a bill appropriating money before he votes 
on it, is not discharging his duty to the Constitution. Why was Con- 
gress required to appropriate money ? Why was this responsibility 
riveted upon us, which we are now endeavoring to shake oft"? It was 
that the people's representatives — those who are amenable to the people 
and to the states — should give an account of the disposition which they 
make of the people's money. Here, sir, we have a proceeding which is 
to relieve us of this responsibility. We are to have so much confidence 
in this court, that we are not to discuss its proceedings, except now and 
then, I suppose, simply to keep up a show of discharging our duties. 
This is precisely what I apprehended in the beginning, because I saw, 
from the commencement, that unless we did that, we should have made 
by this movement — as I have already stated — not one step in advance 
f the position which we at present occupy. Unless you pass, without 
'discussion, the bills sent by the proposed court, you will have accom- 
plished nothing by its organization; and if you do discuss them, the 
court is a nullity, not worth a sixpence. 



390 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

On the same day Mr. Brown again spoke as follows : — 
Mr. President, I should not again trouble the Senate — and I only mean 
now to speak a few minutes — if senators had not stated my position 
entirely as though I were averse to these private claims. I must have 
labored to little purpose, if I have not convinced every one who pays 
the least attention to my course, that I have always sympathized deeply 
and earnestly with claimants, and, perhaps, said as much, and endeavored 
to do as much, as any other senator, or any other member of the other 
House of Congress, to relieve this branch of the government, and, at 
the same time, relieve the wants of private claimants. It is, as I under- 
took to demonstrate this morning, because this bill does not accomplish 
either of those objects, that I am opposed to it. I do not wonder that 
claimants should be in favor of this proposition. A man in a frying- 
pan would be very apt to jump into the fire — anything for a change. 
Claimants have suffered, I know, for years and years, under the inaction 
of Congress. I have always been ready and anxious to act in their 
favor; but when you make a change at all, I want it to be a beneficial 
change ; and the point which I undertook to make this morning was, 
that, before senators should insist upon the passage of this bill, they 
should show that the bills coming from the court would be more readily 
acted upon than bills coming from a committee ; for I insist that, until 
that is shown, you have not shown that this bill will give relief either to 
Congress or to claimants. 

I want to show, while I am up, that so far from this bill giving relief 
to the claimants, it will be a total denial of justice to all small claimants. 
Why ? It involves an amount of expense to them which they will never 
be enabled to pay, unless they have a claim for some thousands of dol- 
lars. Suppose there should be a claimant in one of the remote states, 
as Florida, or California, or in one of the remote territories, as 
Oregon, or Washington, for $500. Now, he presents his claim to his 
representative or delegate, and he brings it here before Congress, and 
gets some sort of investigation — it does not amount to a great deal, it is 
ti"ue, but it does not cost him anything. Establish the court, and what 
will you require of him ? He must, in the beginning, employ an 
attorney to present his claim to it, according to form : for here you are 
prescribing that petitions shall be drawn up in form, and then you 
are authorizing the court to lay down the rules which are to govern it. 
What will a poor fellow away off in Florida, or California, or in one of 
the remote territories, know of the forms and rules of this court ? How 
is he to get his case fairly before the court, otherwise than by employ- 
ing an attorney ? What next ? The court is to send out a commission 
— a commission from Washington City to Florida, or Oregon, or some 
other remote point, to take testimony ; and if testimony is to be taken 
in favor of the claimant, he is to pay the expense of it. What private 
claimant can afford to pay the attorney's fees and expenses of this com- 
mission simply to get justice from his government ? I stand up here, 
and in the name of those claimants, protest against the iniquity of this 
thing. It is our business to give justice to our creditors, and not impose 
upon them expenses which will amount to a total denial of justice. You 
have it in your power to do it without encumbering them with those ex- 
penses. You ought to do it ; and if you are faithful to yourselves and 
to the Constitution, you will do it. 



JOINT COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS. 391 

I want some one to show me how these enormous expenses are to be 
avoided. What attorney will take a claim from a remote state without 
his fee ? The court will have its own rules, and will not consider a case 
without testimony. Ex parte testimony will not be considered. A com- 
mission will be sent out to take testimony anew. The claimant must 
pay the expense, so far as his side of the case is concerned. That ex- 
pense must necessarily swallow up all the profits of the claim; and then, 
when he has paid the expenses, Avhere does he stand ? Precisely where 
he stands to-day, with a bill before Congress, which would be no more 
likely to pass on account of the expenses incurred and paid, than it is 
likely to pass now, unless you do as my friend from Delaware has said, 
pass it because of your confidence in the court. Sir, confidence is a 
plant of sickly growth ; the very moment that you breathe suspicion 
upon it, it will be like the Exchange Bank of Washington. When con- 
fidence was destroyed, the bank went down. When confidence is de- 
stroyed in the court, the court will go down. Members will not be apt, 
after once being imposed upon by a decision from the court, to pass 
other bills without consideration ; and when you come to discuss them as 
you discuss bills now, this discussion will occur upon every proposition 
as it comes up, as I will now proceed to demonstrate. 

The expense of the discussion of bills coming from the court will be 
equal to the expense of the discussion of bills coming from a committee ; 
therefore, my friend's argument all falls to the ground. How will the 
discussion arise ? There will be outside parties, ready to complain that 
justice has not been done to the government, or to other parties ; or the 
claimant will say that he got but some fifteen, or twenty, or fifty per 
centum of what he claims. He AA'ill say to his friends : " Injustice has 
been done to me ; I want you to investigate this case ; I want a discus- 
sion before the Senate about it." In every case where a claimant has not 
got all he asked for, he will demand discussion ; when he has got all he 
has demanded, some ill-natured friend of his will be very apt to prompt 
discussion. One single member rises and attacks a bill on the ground 
of the insufiicicncy of the testimony; then you will have all the discus- 
sion on a bill coming from the court that you have on a bill coming 
from a committee. 

You cannot keep down these discussions ; and above all, Mr. Presi- 
dent, you cannot prevent the utterance of those two potential words in 
the House of Representatives, "I object." "I object" has destroyed 
more bills in that House than the most eloquent arguments have ever 
carried through it. That same potent " I object" will be there to meet 
your bills from this court, as they have met your bills from committees ; 
not because there is any reason in it, not because there is justice in it, 
but because members think proper to say " I object." I ask those who 
have served in the other House of Congress, if this is not true, and to 
the letter, according to their experience ? 

Mr. Hunter. The senator from Mississippi seems to think that this 
bill will entail a great deal of expense on the petitioner. I think not. 
It requires him to do in the court what our rules require him to do here, 
file a petition, state the persons interested, and the action of Congress 
and the department upon it — a thing that he can do without an attorney, 
if he can draw up a petition at all. 

Mr. Brown. We all know that the representatives of the people do 



392 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

not take note of the want of form. We do not care whether the peti- 
tion is precisely addressed according to the forms of law% whether it 
opens and concludes properly, or not. We look to the substance of the 
thins: ; but what will the court do ? What do we authorize them to do ? 
Why, to make their own rules. What do courts do ? Where is the 
private citizen in this country who can get his case fairly into court, and 
fairly out of it, without the aid of an attorney ? Are not attorneys 
required in all courts ? Has not the ingenuity of legislators in the 
several states been racked for years, seeking to dispense with attorneys 
before a court ? And what has it all resulted in ? Why, in imposing 
additional burdens upon the claimant. Where a private party goes into 
court, he must go with the aid of legal counsel, and so this court will 
require the same thing, whatever may be the pretensions or honest con- 
victions of gentlemen. 



PRIYATEEE BRIG GENERAL ARMSTRONG. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 26, 1855, ON THE 
CLAIM OF THE OWNERS OF THE PRIVATEER BRIG GENERAL ARM- 
STRONG, DESTROYED IN THE PORT OF FAYAL, PORTUGAL, IN 
VIOLATION OF THE NEUTRALITY OF THAT PORT. 

Mr. President: As I voted for this claim before, and intend to do so 
again, I desire in a few words, to assign the reasons which govern that 
vote. 

The facts in the early history of this case seem to be well understood, 
and about them there is little or no controversy, here or anywhere else. 
That the brig General Armstrong was attacked by a greatly superior 
force, in a neutral port, where she made a most signal defence; one 
which reflected high honor upon the nation, and upon all the parties 
engaged on our side of the controversy, seems to be everywhere admitted. 
That she was attacked in violation of the law of nations, seems never to 
have been disputed at any time. Through all the changes of adminis- 
tration, there has not been found a Secretary of State, or a President 
who has not insisted that the attack was in violation of law, and that an 
obligation was thereby imposed upon Portugal to indemnify the claim- 
ants. Portugal resisted, and our government continued to insist upon 
satisfaction until we were brought, under the administration of the late 
General Taylor, almost to the very verge of a conflict with that govern- 
ment, growing out of this claim. 

Portugal has been discharged ; and the question arises, by whose 
agency ? It is admitted that the Secretary of State of the United States 
agreed to an arbitration of the case ; and it is nowhere insisted that he 
consulted the clients of the government — for I shall so treat them — as 
to whether the case should be thus submitted or not. Assuming that 
he had the right to do so, he exercised it, and submitted the case to 
arbitration without their consent. The submission was to the late Presi- 
dent of the Republic of France ; but before he rendered his decision he 
became the Emperor of that country. 



PRIVATEER BRIG GENERAL ARMSTRONG. 393 

Now, sir, I am not going into any minute investigation of each par- 
ticular fact in the progress of this case ; but I shall endeavor to touch 
on those facts -which are most prominent, and, in my judgment, ought to 
govern our decision. Up to tlie point where we now are there seems to 
be no controversy about the facts ; but the senator from Tennessee asks 
whether it was not within the knowledge of these claimants that the case 
was submitted, and whether they protested against it ? Well, sir, I 
apprehend that, if an attorney employed to prosecute a suit decides it 
out of the ordinary course of his profession, he will render himself liable 
if the money is lost ; in other words, if I employ you, Mr. President, or 
any other gentleman, as a lawyer, to prosecute my case, and you submit 
it to arbitration without my consent, you render yourself liable to me 
for whatever damage I may sustain thereby. But it is said that you 
may protect yourself by a charge that I had knowledge of the fact that 
there had been such a submission, and that I did not protest against it. 
If this be not a violation of one of the established rules of law, it comes 
so exceedingly close to it that I hardly perceive the difference. It is 
an attempt to force on the claimants here the proof of a negative. If 
the government gave them notice, it is the duty of the government to 
show that the notice was given. If they had notice, let those who take 
the affirmative of that proposition come forward with the proof, and not 
impose on the claimants the necessity of proving a negative — that they 
did not consent. 

My own clear judgment is, that, the government of Portugal having 
been originally liable, and our government having discharged that lia- 
bility by its own mismanagement of the case, has obliged itself to make 
indemnity to these claimants ; and upon that broad principle I shall 
place my vote. I will not follow the lawyers through all the little 
technicalities of the case, seeking a little technical objection here, and 
another one somewhere else, by which we may discharge ourselves from 
an honest obligation to these parties. Sir, who is the claimant, and 
what were the services rendered by him in the beginning of this claim ? 
As gallant a soldier as ever drew a blade in defence of his country ; a 
man who, by universal consent,* fought the most gallant action that was 
ever fought upon the bosom of the waters, in proportion to the numbers 
employed. When before, sir, in the history of naval warfare has it 
been known that a little brig, with five or six guns and ninety men, 
could stand out in noble resistance against more than five times its 
strength, and come out of the conflict with only two men killed, when 
there lay dead on the decks of the enemy more than twenty times 
that number ? When this transaction first occurred, if history speaks 
truly, it electrified every American heart from one extremity of the 
Union to the other. I dare say, if, at that time, the gallant old captain 
who stood upon the deck of the Armstrong in this conflict, had come 
to his government, and asked for payment for his ship, it would have been 
rendered, and there would have been no cavilling about it. The govern- 
ment would have said : " Here, my gallant son, take the money, and we 
will demand a return of it from Portugal ; but so far as you are con- 
cerned, your ship shall not be sacrificed unlawfully in the defence of your 
country, and we stand by and permit it to be done without making an 
effort to save you and your men from ruin." In such a case as this, sir, 
I cannot persuade myself to sink down to the mere technicalities of the 



394 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

lawyer, for there is too much in the history of the case, too much in the 
gallantry of the great and good old man who prefers the claim, for me 
to descend to those little particulars. 

Sir, Captain Reid is not known to this country alone as the com- 
mander of the armed brig in this conflict. Fix your eye as you come to 
the Capitol upon that flag which waves over us to-day, and ask who ia 
its author ? Sir, the author of that flag, the man who designed it, is the 
claimant in this case. It was under his humble roof, by the hands of his 
wife and daughters, that the first flag that ever floated over this Capitol 
was manufactured. In every way he has manifested his devotion to his 
country, his deep and lasting devotion to America, to her institutions, 
and to her honor ; not only toiling in season but out of season in her 
defence ; and shall we, the representatives of the states, stand here to- 
day cavilling upon little miserable technicalities of the law, such as 
lawyers resort to in courts of law and courts of equity, to avoid the 
payment of honest claims ? I have great respect, not only personally, 
for my friend from Michigan [Mr. Stuart], but I have the greatest 
respect for his astuteness as a lawyer ; and if he were in court to-day 
pleading for some man who was trying to resist the payment of an honest 
claim, I should applaud his technicalities and say they were well taken. 
His was a lawyer-like speech. I am not prepared to say that, according 
to the strict rules of technical law, it was not a correct speech. As 
between A and B — A trying to avoid the payment of an honest debt on 
a technicality — I think the speech would have been well delivered ; but 
I think it was out of place in the Senate of the United States for a great 
nation to attempt to get rid of an honest claim, preferred by a high- 
souled and patriotic citizen, who has shed his blood in defence of the 
country, who has reflected glory upon his flag. For myself, sir, I repeat, 
I am satisfied this government has made itself liable, in law, for the pay- 
ment of the claim; but whether liable or not, I am going to vote on the 
broad principle that old Reid fought the battle, that somebody was 
responsible for the loss of his ship, that that responsibility has been 
removed from the party who was clearly liable, and that we ought to 
make up the damage. 



LETTER AGAINST KNOW-NOTHINGISM. 

Newtown, Hinds Co., Miss., April 12, 1855. 

Dear Sir : — Yours of March 21st, inviting an expression of my views 
in reference to the new political organization called "Know-Nothings," 
has been received. It has all along been my intention to avail myself 
of some suitable occasion to express my opinions of this Order. None 
arose while Congress was in session, and the limits of a letter, such as I 
am HOW called upon to write, hardly afl'ord scope enough for a full 
expression and vindication of the views entertained by me. I content 
myself for the present, therefore, with a glance at some of the more 
prominent points of the issues presented. 

Personally, I know nothing of the "Know-Nothings." Taking it for 
granted that common fame presents the Order in its true colors, it is a 



LETTER AGAINST KNOW-NOTHINGISM. 305 

secret political organization gotten up for the ostensible purpose of ex- 
cluding Roman Catholics from office, and foreign born persons from 
office and the right of voting. If I misstate the object of the party it 
is because, in the absence of any public avowal of its purposes, I am 
compelled to rely for information upon common rumor. 

I am opposed to all secret political organizations. The laws should 
be made, construed, and administered in the open face of day. _ From 
the first suggestion that gives them shape, to the final act of their com- 
plete execution, all should be public as the sun at noon-day. The history 
of the Jacobins, the Star Chamber, and the Inquisition, give us many 
and painful proofs that liberty is a by-word, and life a mockery, when 
the laws are either made, adjudged, or executed in private. It will be 
said, I know, that the new Order does not propose to legislate in secret. 
This is an unworthy evasion. If it is agreed in secret to pass particular 
laws, and men are chosen in secret, and secretly bound by oaths to enact 
them, of what avail is it that they go through the forms of legislation in 
public. The Jacobins consulted and agreed in private, but they went 
through the forms of legislation in public. The result was that they 
deluged France in blood. 

If we consent to pass laws in secret or through secret^agencies, how 
long will it be before we shall be called on to revive the Star Chamber, 
and pass judgment in secret ? And when this is done, will not the 
Inquisition shake the dust from its implements of death, and claim the 
right to execute in secret ? 

Thus may be revived in republican America the appalling and bloody 
tragedies that blacken the pages of English, French, and Spanish his- 
tory. 

The secrecy observed by the Know-Nothings cannot be excused on 
the plea that all political parties hold secret caucuses. Whigs and 
Democrats avow their party associations — inscribe their principles on 
the banners they unfurl, and publicly — in the newspapers, on the stump, 
and everywhere else, vindicate their principles. They consult privately 
as to the means of reaching a conclusion ; but the conclus^ion once 
reached, it is openly proclaimed. Not so with the Know-Nothings : 
they do not avow their party associations. As a party, they avow no 
principles before the public ; and of course enter into no defence of their 
principles in the newspapers, on the stump, or elsewhere. They consult 
in secret, and Avhen conclusions are reached they are made known only 
to the initiated. There is, therefore, no parallel between a Whig or 
Democratic caucus and a Know-Nothing lodge. 

A vain eifort has been made to excuse the secrecy of the Know- 
Nothings, by citing the example of Free Masons, Odd Fellows, and 
other benevolent associations. Things to be compared must have some 
sort of resemblance to each other. Free Mason and Odd Fellow asso- 
ciations are purely charitable. Know-Nothings are exclusively political. 
We have the highest Christian example for dispensing charities in secret. 
But the same high authority teaches us to govern openly. 

I am American enough to prefer my own countrymen to any other, 
and Protestant enough to prefer a follower of Luther to a disciple of 
Loyola. But my love of country will for ever keep me out of any asso- 
ciation that (if fame speaks truly) binds its members by terrible oaths 
to sustain American Protestants for office, though they may be fools, 



396 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

knaves, or traitors, in preference to Irish or German Catholics, though 
they may have genius, honor, and the highest evidences of patriotic 
devotion to our country and its institutions. All other things being 
equal, I should certainly prefer an American Protestant to an Irish 
Catholic. But I will take no oath nor come under any party obligation 
that may compel me to sustain a fool or a knave, in preference to a man 
of sense and honor. While I assume no censorship over other men's 
thoughts or actions, I am free to say for myself alone, that such oaths 
and such obligations are, to my mind, palpably at war with man's high- 
est and most sacred duty to his country. 

To my mind the secret feature of the Know-Nothing organization, 
though paramount, is not its only objectionable feature. A party that 
is worth joining and worth sustaining ought to have some permanent, 
palpable, and lasting principles — some principles that can be carried 
into useful and active practice in the administration of the government. 
Have the Know-Nothings such principles ? To my comprehension, as 
at present advised, they have not — can they, for example, by any sys- 
tem of legislation, short of a radical change in our Federal and State 
Constitutions, exclude Koman Catholics from the right of suflFrage or the 
right of holding office. Our enlightened and liberal Constitution, as we 
all know, makes no invidious discrimination against Catholics, but ex- 
tends the gegis of its protection over them and all religionists, assuring 
them of their right to worship God after the dictates of their own con- 
science. I am a progressive Democrat, but I have not progressed far 
enough to make war on the guaranties of the Constitution, to gratify 
a hatred of the Pope, or to undertake, by stealth, to accomplish that 
which the Constitution has forbidden me to do openly. 

I am for the Constitution as it is written, and among the last of its 
guaranties that I would disturb is that in reference to religious freedom. 
How any man, schooled in our institutions and accustomed to the free- 
dom of religious worship, which he sees every day, can desire any change, 
surpasses my comprehension. Theology is not my profession, and I 
leave to the learned D.D.'s the discussion of the relative merits of the 
several Christian denominations, gently hinting that such discussions 
suit the pulpit better than the bar room. And as they should be con- 
ducted for the honor of God and the glory of his church, the secrecy of 
a Know-Nothing lodge may, I think, be safely dispensed with. I may 
be mistaken, but if there is anything to be gained, of a practical nature, 
by the projected war of the Know-Nothings against the Catholics, it 
has eluded my observation. 

The idea of excluding foreign born persons from office and the right 
of voting, is not quite so visionary, but practically it amounts to but 
very little more. It is a palpable but common error, that the right to 
vote is inseparable from citizenship. Many people appear to think that 
none but native or adopted citizens can vote in this country. This is a 
great mistake. Whatever may have been the individual opinions of men 
who framed the Federal Constitution, they practically ignored all control 
by Congress over the ballot box. They very properly gave to Congress 
the sole right to make a citizen of a foreign born person, but they wisely 
left with the states the power to regulate the right of voting. Each 
state, for itself and within its own limits, declares who shall vote. In 
the exercise of this right, Virginia and other states have imposed pro- 



LETTER AGAINST KNOW-NOTHING ISM. 397 

perty qualifications ; Mississippi and some others allow every white male 
citizen, over the age of twenty-one years, to vote ; while Illinois, Michi- 
gan, and perhaps others, allow male inhabitants (including foreigners 
not naturalized), to exercise the right of suffrage. The Constitution of 
the United States allows qualified voters for members of the state legis- 
lature to vote for Congressmen; and this is the only limitation, restric- 
tion, or regulation that is imposed, or can be imposed, without a change 
of the Constitution. Presidential electors are chosen as each state for 
itself may elect ; South Carolina, in the exercise of this right, has always 
chosen hers by a vote of the legislature. 

In what manner, then, allow me to ask, with great respect, will the 
Know-Nothings authorize Congress to exercise control over a subject 
that belongs exclusively to the states ? I do not understand them to 
propose a change of the Federal Constitution, and without such change 
Congress has as little control over the elective franchise as it has over • 
the English nobility. But suppose a proposition shall be submitted to 
change the Constitution, so as to confer on Congress the right to deter- 
mine who shall vote — what is the first obstacle that interposes to the 
practical exercise of the right? The same that confronted the fraraers 
of the Constitution originally, to wit : Virginia would insist on a property 
qualification. New York would contend for free suffrage, Illinois would 
demand for her alien inhabitants the right to vote, while Mississippi 
would contend that none but citizens should exercise that privilege. And 
thus we should be brought back to where we were at the beginnin<T, 
where we have been ever since, and where we are now — to the point of 
allowing those to vote within the states whom the states adjudge worthy 
and well qualified ; or else we should have what I suppose the extremest 
Federalist would not insist on — Congress marching into a state and, vi et * 
armis, striking down the last remaining vestige of its reserved rights, 
by assuming control over the ballot box. The ballot box is the bulwark 
of liberty ; it should, under all circumstances, be kept free from im- 
proper influences. When secret influences are set on foot to wrest it 
from the states and put it under the control of Congress, the people may ,, 
well tremble for the safety of their firesides. Is there one man in 
Mississippi who would be willing to see Congress invested with the power 
to determine who should vote and who should not in our state ? Would 
not such an investiture become the winding sheet of liberty in Missis- 
sippi ? and yet it comes to this, or else the proposition to exclude foreign- 
ers from the right of suffrage is an empty bubble ; for I repeat, Illinois, 
Michigan, and other states have allowed aliens not naturalized to vote. 
It was their right to do so. They and any, or all the states, may do so 
again, and there is no power on earth to prevent it, short of a change 
in the Constitution. The simple question, therefore, is, " Will we abide 
by things as they now are, or will we change the Federal- Constitution, 
and allow Congress to say who shall vote and who shall not?" Give 
Congress the power, and who will undertake to say what will be the 
result? If Virginia has her way, no man may be allowed to vote who 
does not own real property ; if Massachusetts prevails, no man will be 
allowed to vote who owns a slave ; if Illinois is heard, we shall have all 
the inhabitants voting, whether native or foreign born. I cannot help 
what other men may think or do, but for myself, I " will bear those ills 
I have, sooner than fly to others that I know not of." 



398 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

In what manner the Know-Nothings intend to exclude Catholics and 
foreign born persons from office, I do not exactly understand. If it is 
proposed to exclude them by law, the idea is simply ridiculous. The 
Constitution has conferred no power on the legislature, state or national, 
to pass any such laws. If it is meant to exclude them by refusing to 
vote for them, then the whole thing becomes a matter of taste, de 
gustihus nil disputandum. I have said that other things being equal, I 
should prefer an American Protestant to an Irish Catholic; but if I 
had to choose between Montgomery and Arnold, I should not be long 
in making up my mind. 

I have treated the subject thus far as a national question. First, be- 
cause I am dealing with what purports to be a national organization ; 
and secondly, because in Mississippi we have not been troubled with 
foreigners, and no one has been bold enough to propose that Mississippi 
shall assume control over the local affairs of New York, Pennsylvania, 
and other states where foreigners do most abound. The aliens residin"- 

CD O 

in these states are subjected to the local jurisdiction, and if they are 
troublesome let the states exercise their undoubted right to control them. 
It is our business to attend to our own affairs. 

We have seen nothing practical in Know-Nothingism as a political 
movement thus far. There is one, and only one point discoverable by 
me, in the whole creed of the new order, that rises above the low degree 
of a mere abstraction. It is this: *' The citizens of each state shall be 
entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
states," says the Constitution. A naturalized citizen of Illinois for in- 
stance, coming to Mississippi, would be entitled to the same privileges 
that would attach to a native of Illinois coming to this state ; whereas, 
a foreign-born inhabitant, although entitled to vote in Illinois by the 
laws of that state, would, if he came to Mississippi, be an alien, and 
entitled only to the privileges of an alien. Mississippi may admit an 
unnaturalized person to the right of voting, or exclude him if she 
chooses, but she can no more exclude a foreigner that is naturalized 
than she can exclude a native of another state. Mississippi could, if 
she choose, exclude all but natives of her own soil, but she cannot dis- 
criminate so as to admit the right of suffrage to the native of another 
state, and exclude the adopted citizens of the same state. In this view 
of the subject, it is admissible in Mississippi, as a part of the nation- 
ality, to express her opinion as to what should be the term of probation 
preceding naturalization. If an alien resides five years continuously in 
Illinois, or any other state, or in the United States, as the law now is, 
he is entitled to naturalization, and having obtained it, he may claim, 
as I have said before, all the privileges in Mississippi that rightfully 
belong to a native of another state. This presents the only point open 
to national legislation that is embraced in the whole Know-Nothing 
creed, as I understand it. We cannot exclude foreigners from the right 
of voting by act of Congress. A total repeal of the naturalization 
laws would not, as we have already seen, prevent a state from admitting 
a foreigner to vote within her limits. But the repeal of those laws 
would throw a foreigner upon the indulgence of each state in which he 
might reside. This modification would leave him the privilege, by one 
act of naturalization, to acquire all the rights and privileges in all the 
states of a native born citizen of any of the states. 



LETTER AGAINST KNOAV-NOTHINGISM. 890 

In my opinion, Congress has no right to repeal the naturalization 
laws. The states conferred on Congress the power to pass uniform laws 
of naturalization, and by that act they divested themselves, as separate 
independencies, of all authority over the question. To repeal the laws 
and refuse to pass others would be eifectually to deny to foreigners, in 
perpetuity, the right to become citizens. A state would have the right 
to complain that having given to Congress the sole poAver to pass natu- 
ralization laws, Congress, by a non-use of that power, had eflfectually 
deprived its alien inhabitants of all power to become citizens. Good 
faith to the states making the grant, in my opinion, requires its exer- 
cise. But the manner of its exercise is a subject open to the sound 
discretion of Congress. On this point, Mississippi, as a party to the 
compact, has a right to be heard. If five years' residence is in her 
opinion too short a time to entitle an alien to the privileges of a citizen, 
she has a right to insist on ten, fifteen, or any reasonable number of 
years — any number that does not amount, virtually, to a denial to the 
constitutional right of naturalization. 

A proposition to change the naturalization laws is quite a different 
question ; it falls within the purview of congressional legislation, and 
furnishes a legitimate subject for debate as a national issue. For my- 
self, I can say that whenever the public will or the public wants shall 
demand a change I am prepared for it. While I would yield nothing 
to the demands of fanaticism, or the spirit of intolerance, I am pre- 
pared to assist in carrying out whatever the calm dispassionate judgment 
of the country may require on this subject. I hardly feel called on to 
give an opinion as to what change should be made. In my character, 
as senator, it is my business, on a question of public policy, to follow 
rather than to lead public sentiment. If I gave an individual opinion, I 
should say, that having felt no personal inconvenience from the presence 
of Cathohcs or foreigners, I have made no complaint, and if others had 
been content to let the law remain as it is, I should have been content 
also. I have asked for no change, because no one in Mississippi, so far 
as I know, has petitioned for it, and personally I am satisfied with the 
law as it now is. If, however, my state, in its organic capacity, or if a 
majority of her people shall manifest a wish to have the law changed, 
and will indicate in what respect and to what extent, I will, as senator, 
endeavor to execute the will of the state or of the people. 

I have said that I would yield nothing to the demands of fanaticism 
or the spirit of intolerance, but I have not characterized the Know- 
NotJiing movement as fanatical or intolerant. It would be indecorous 
in me thus to speak of a movement in Avhich I have reason to suppose 
many of my fellow-citizens are engaged. And yet I must say (and 
may I not hope without offence ?) that there is much, very much in the 
movement that I cannot approve. It comes heralded by no previous 
warning — ushered into being without parentage — with no purposes 
openly avowed, and its supporters, though often victorious, are unknown 
to the public. If there exists a real necessity for changing the laws of 
naturalization, why not submit the proposition to the calm, dispassionate 
judgment of the country ? — why not submit it openly ? — why so much 
secrecy ? Is there anything in a proposition like this, so startling that 
its advocates must band themselves in secret, and bind one another by 
terrific oaths to be faithful to their pledges ? I have all my life been 



400 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

accustomed to think bad men who sought to elude the laws of justice, 
had need of secrecy and oaths to make them faithful. But among 
honest men, seeking to evade no law, and pursuing honest ends by fair 
means, I can see no use for much concealment. 

In expressing these views I am not taking sides against my own 
countrymen, I am not defending Catholicism or foreign influence in our 
affairs, I am not defending our foreign population in all their past con- 
duct, or attempting to maintain that they have been faultless in their 
deportment. In many things they have been to blame. They have in 
our large cities banded themselves together for social, religious, military, 
and political purposes ; thus keeping up in our midst a nationality alien 
to our country and distasteful to our people. They have gone to the 
ballot-box in large numbers, bonded together as a class, to cast not 
American, but Irish, German, and other foreign votes. Conduct like 
this is indefensible. I will neither undertake to palliate or excuse it. 
While we open our country as an asylum to the oppressed of other 
lands, the least return they can make, it seems to me, is to conform 
heartily to our customs — mingle freely in our society — forget as soon 
as possible their foreign birth, and become in truth and in fact Ameri^ 
cans in every sense of the word. 

But let us not forget Avhat belongs to the dignity of the American 
character. I would no more think of granting a foreigner the rights of 
citizenship and then grudge him their exercise, than I would invite a 
gentleman to my house and then deny him its hospitalities. But if I invite 
a man to my board and he behaves with rudeness I will not press him 
to stay, and I may be slow to urge a visit from his kith and kin. If 
foreigners coming to America would insure to themselves a countenance 
of cordial national hospitality, they must respect America, its institutions, 
and its people. And if they expect us to keep up a standing invitation 
to their friends and brothers to come among us, they must show by their 
own conduct, that we are to be benefited, or at least not injured by 
their coming. 

There are classes of foreigners to whose presence in this country I 
object, and against whose coming I enter my solemn protest. I mean 
criminals, convicts, and paupers. Our country is neither a common jail 
nor an almshouse for the old world. Against the introduction of foreign 
criramals and convicts there is perfect unanimity of sentiment in the 
United States, so far as I know or have reason to believe. But the 
public mind is not so well settled as to the introduction of paupers. 
Some extremely philanthropic people protest against the exclusion of 
those whose greatest fault is poverty. Without entering into any meta- 
physical disquisition concerning the obligation of the rich to feed and 
clothe the poor, I content myself with saying that there is not a state 
in the Union that would allow another state to quarter its paupers within 
its limits. The rich and prosperous county of Claiborne or any other 
county in this state would protest at once against another county impos- 
ing its paupers on its bounty. What the states will not do for one 
another, and what one county in a state will not do for another county 
in the same state, the United States can hardly be expected to do for a 
foreign country. 

Foreigners have sometimes been at fault. Foreign governments have 
grievously wronged us by trying to palm their refuse population upon 



LETTER AGAINST KNOW-NOTHINGISM. 401 

US. These are things to be complained of, but they do not demand the 
extreme remedy of pohtical revolution. I am inclined to think the law 
is sufficient for our protection, and with a little more vigilance in its 
execution, all cause of complaint, I hope will vanish. If the law needs 
amending, let us amend it so as to give ourselves perfect safety for the 
future. 

I am speaking of things as they are, and trying to deal justly with 
all parties; "I will nothing extenuate, nor aught set down in malice." 
Good faith requires me, therefore, to go on and say that our people have 
not alvvays been without blame. Many of our leading politicians of all 
parties, in their intercourse with foreigners, have been guilty of marked 
improprieties. If I select an example here and there, for the sake of 
illustration, I am not to be suspected of charging one or of excusing 
another. Men of all parties have been to blame. There has been too 
much seeking after the foreign vote. My own emphatic conviction is, 
that no distinction should be known between native and adopted citizens. 
All are Americans, and all should be treated alike. While I condemn, 
therefore, the Know-Nothing movement as harsh, and to a degree cruel 
towards foreigners, I reprobate in the strongest terms every appeal to 
the separate foreign vote, and every attempt, come from whom it may, 
to identify or unite foreigners, as a class, with one party or another. 

When General Scott, in the late presidential contest, went out of his 
way to compliment the "sweet Irish brogue," and the " silvery German 
accent," I thought he offended the national pride of his own country- 
men, and gave to foreigners a gratuitous assurance that they constituted 
a separate class whose votes he would like to have. 

It is not quite twelve months since the Congress of the United States, 
by an overwhelming vote, gave to foreigners not naturalized the right 
of suffrage in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. I voted and 
spoke against this movement. But my opposition was unheeded. Many 
who are now for a total exclusion of foreigners from all rights, or, as a 
matter of extreme concession, are willing to compromise on a twenty- 
one years' residence as the shortest term in which a foreigner can qualify 
himself to vote, were then the most clamorous for ffiving; them the ri^ht 
without a month, a week, or even a day's residence. Men may palliate 
their past follies on the one side, by their excessive zeal on the other for 
the future. But I take leave to say that a little more consistency would 
inspire in me a higher degree of confidence in their good faith. 

I shall never forget the reception of Kossuth at the national capital. 
He came to this country breathing contempt of Washington's precepts, 
and the people's representatives received him with open arms. The 
President (Mr. Fillmore) sent his son to New Yoi'k, and bid him welcome ; 
Congress, by an almost unanimous vote, invited him to Washington as the 
guest of the nation ; and when he got there, honors were lavished on him 
such as have not been bestowed on any living man. There was an igno- 
ble rivalry between Whigs and Democrats, as to who should be the most 
obsequious in these attentions to this intermeddler in our affairs. Not 
only did they entertain him and his suite at the expense of the nation, 
but they spread before him a banquet such as kings might envy. And 
at this banquet the American Secretary of State (Mr. Webster) appeared, 
and made a speech highly complimentary, if not, indeed, eulogistic of 
the "distinguished guest." Nor did the disgusting folly stop here. 
26 



402 ALBERT G. BEOWN. 

Kossuth was invited within the bar of the two Houses of Congress, and 
appeared in the Senate chamber, clad in an imperial uniform, with a 
sword girt to his side. It is creditable to the nation that this was the 
first, as I humbly believe it will be the last, exhibition of its kind. Is 
it wonderful that the national taste was offended, or the national pride 
aroused ? 

It is said that Kossuth was the friend of liberty, and these foolish 
demonstrations in his favor have been excused on this o-round. He 
made some pretty speeches, and he left on paper some stirring essays. 
But if he ever '^ set a squadron in the field, or did the divisions of a 
battle know more than a spinster,'' history has cruelly failed to make 
the least record of it. In this country, he was mainly distinguished for 
his impassioned appeals to our government and people to abandon the 
teachings of Washington, and follow him (Kossuth) in a crusade against 
all the world, and Austria in particular, in favor of a restoration of 
Hungarian independence. He would have had us embark in a bloody 
war to restore Hungary to a position in which she could recognise him 
as king. For this, his singular devotion to liberty, our public men feted, 
toasted, and caressed him ; grave senators and dignified representatives 
hung about him for days and weeks, and drank in his words as though 
they had fallen from inspired lips. It is curious to see how many of 
those who followed Kossuth like a shadoAv, and seemed actually to revel 
in the sunshine of his favor, are now become rampant Know-Nothings, 
and are trying to conceal their folly in running after him, by cursing all 
foreigners, and threatening to expel them from the country. Consis- 
tency, thou art indeed a jewel! I need hardly add that I voted against 
inviting Kossuth to Washington, and refused to participate in doing 
him honors after he got there. 

These remarks are made in no complaining spirit against my peers. 
If there have been faults on the part of foreigners, there have been 
follies on the part of our people. Preserving, as far as possible, a calm 
equilibrium, I have not been exasperated by one, nor taken captive by 
the other. To me it Avill be a source of unalloyed pleasure, if my fel- 
low-citizens shall see in the future a necessity for encouraging foreigners 
to become more intensely American in their habits, sentiments, and 
deportments, and for placing over their own conduct a closer watch. 

Having already drawn out this letter to a much greater length than I 
intended, and still omitting several points on which I could with propriety 
have touched, I am constrained to bring it to a close. 

On some proper occasion, I will undertake to analyze the constituent 
elements of the Know-Nothing party. To show that it is composed 
t chiefly of Whigs, Free-Soilers, and disappointed Democrats ; to exhibit 
its incompatibility, and show how improbable it is that such incongruous 
materials can ever harmonize in the administration of the government. 
If the party was in power to-day, it could not pass one act of national 
importance without the grossest surrender of principle on the part of 
some one. How could National Whigs and National Democrats act 
together on issues that have separated them and their fathers for half a 
century ; and how could either act in concert with those pestilential 
disturbers of the public peace, who make unceasing war on the South 
and its institutions ? To my mind the thing is impossible. As I mean 
to belong to a homogeneous party, I will stick to the Democracy. And 



NAVAL RETIRING BOARD. 403 

why should I not ? why should not every true Democrat be faithful to 
his flag? Is not Democracy now what it has ever been? Has it not 
for fifty years and more administered the government with unparalleled 
success, lifting it up, from a few feeble and almost dependent states, to 
the most powerful confederation of independent sovereignties on the face 
of the earth ? Has it not extended our area to more than four times its 
original limits ; thus multiplying our domestic pursuits until their name 
is legion, and expanding our commerce until it takes in the four corners 
of the globe ? And has it not raised up a policy, at home and abroad, 
that entails upon us unequalled prosperity, and is literally wringing 
respect from all the world? Why should I or any other Democrat quit 
his party? Suppose errors have been committed; suppose men in high 
places have disappointed our hopes — would it have been better under a 
Whig or Free-Soil administration ? No, sir, whatever have been the 
errors of the past, let us look hopefully to the future. Democracy 
has not yet filled her mission ; and until she has, I will follow her ban- 
ner. She has conquered many fields ; but it is her mission to conquer 
a universal dominion. The soldier who deserts now is, in my judgment, 
a traitor to liberty and the dearest interests of humanity throughout 
the world. The mission of Democracy is no holiday march. It is des- 
tined to emancipate the world — to trample thrones and sceptres under 
foot, and set the people free in every land. Just now the enemy is before 
us. He vauntingly boasts that he Avill drive back this young and daring 
cavalier. Shall we ground our arms and surrender at discretion, or 
shall we gird on our swords and be ready for the conflict ? The quick 
response of every loyal Democrat will be, " the flag, at every cost, must 
and shall be defended." I will give neither sleep to my eyes nor rest 
to the soles of my feet, until the assailants are driven back and the ban- 
ner of Democracy waves in triumph over every foe. 
With sentiments of high regard, I remain, very truly, 

Your friend and obedient servant, 

A. G. Brown. 

J. S. Morris, Esq., Editor "Port Gibson Reveille." 



NAVAL RETIRING BOARD. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 2, 1856, ON THE 
ACTION OF THE NAVAL RETIRING BOARD. 

Mr. President: If it had suited the purpose of other senators to 
allow this whole question to lie over until the Committee on Naval Aff'airs 
should have reported upon it, that course would have suited me, and I 
think would better have comported with the fitness of this occasion. 
But, since other senators have thought proper to defend their positions, 
there can be no impropriety in my saying a few words in reference 
to my own. 

No more delicate or diflScult question is coming before the Senate 
than the one which we are now considering. We have already heard 



404 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

complaints of the law under which the action of the Naval Retiring 
Board took place, and senators, in their places, have apologized for 
having voted for it. Some have intimated that they voted without pro- 
per reflection, and that no proper opportunity was given for consideration. 
I voted for the law, and I have no such excuses or apologies to render. 
I voted for the law because officers of the navy of every grade besought 
me, and besought me most earnestly, to vote for it ; and my experience, I 
dare say, was the experience of almost every senator on this floor. Pend- 
ing its consideration, officers of every grade, from commodore down to an 
acting midshipman, besought their friends here — at least I was so besought 
— to give it their support. I was reluctant to do so, because I apprehended 
that difficulties would grow out of the execution of the law. Where there 
was so much unanimity in favor of the measure, I could but foresee that 
there was no one on the whole navy list who expected to be dropped or 
retired. Every officer, from the lowest to the highest, was looking for 
promotion. I foresaw that when some were dropped, and some fur- 
loughed, and some retired, dissatisfaction would spring up, and that the 
officers thus dealt with, by themselves and through their friends, would 
come here and complain of having been harshly treated. 

For these reasons I was reluctant to vote for the bill which was passed 
establishing the Naval Board. I voted for it, however, at the earnest 
and unanimous solicitation of officers of the navy. So far as ray inter- 
course with them extended, no officer of the navy, of any grade, ever 
intimated to me, in the slightest possible degree, that the law ought not 
to be passed. I have no reproaches to enter against myself or others 
for having: sustained the law. As to the manner of its execution, that 
is another question. 

I am not here, sir, to censure the Naval Board indiscriminately, and 
upon the complaint of every man who chances to have been dismissed, 
retired, or furloughed, and especially when we have not heard a solitary 
word from the board itself; and I confess that I am getting somewhat 
impatient when I see your table morning after morning crowded with 
complaints, reflecting more or less upon a board composed, in my opinion, 
of as honorable men as the country or the world has ever produced. 
They may have made mistakes — doubtless they have ; but hear before 
you strike. Let your own committee investigate the question, and 
make its report; and upon that report let the judgment of the Senate be 
pronounced. 

A few words, now, as to the condition of the question as it stands. 
The law, according to my judgment, has been executed. Gentlemen 
speak of repealing the law. Well, sir, suppose the effects of its execution 
were even ten times worse than they are alleged to be, how much diffi- 
culty would you relieve by repealing the law ? Certain gentlemen have 
been dismissed from the naval service ; the President has stricken their 
names from the rolls ; they are out of the navy. Suppose you were to 
repeal the law, will you thereby restore such men to commissions ? Un- 
questionably not. Suppose you repeal the law in reference to those 
who have been furloughed ; what will be the consequence of that? They 
have been furloughed in obedience to an act of Congress, and the repeal 
of the law will not take them off" the furlough list and put them into 
active service. Congress has no right to pass any law appointing A, B, 
or C to office. Gentlemen who have been stricken from the rolls are out 



NAVAL RETIRING BOARD. 405 

of the service, and If 3'ou sit here and legislate till doomsday, you could 
not, in my opinion, legislate them into the service. This is no new- 
question ; it has already been decided. If Congress had had the poAver 
of appointing men to office, it would have made a provision declaring 
that General Scott should be Lieutenant General. But you had no such 
power. It was conceded on all hands that you had no such power. 
It was also conceded by everybody that you had no power to pass a law 
requiring the President to nominate General Scott as Lieutenant Gene- 
ral. You only had the power to pass a bill creating that rank, and then 
the President, in the exercise of his duties as Executive of the United 
States, could nominate him if he chose, and the Senate confirm him if it 
chose. You have no right to legislate back again into office the gentle- 
men who have been dismissed from the navy. Whether their dismission 
was rightful or wrongful, is not the question. The question is one of 
constitutional power. 

I hold that all these appeals to Congress to legislate gentlemen out 
of difficulties into which they have, in some cases, been legislated at their 
own solicitation, are out of place. I shall be very glad to contribute 
whatever may be in my power to relieve those who have suffered injustice. 
If any man has been unjustly dismissed from the service, I am willing 
to hear his petition and to consider his case ; I am willing to extend to 
him all the relief that is in my power ; but we cannot ignore the ques- 
tion as to the extenc of our power. What have we the right to do in 
reference to the case as it is now presented ? — that is the question. 
Admit, if you please, that injustice has been done — that all these 
complaints are well founded. What can you do ? Some one says, 
"repeal the law." A'^ery well, suppose you do, does that restore the 
dismissed officers ? Y^ou might as well talk of restoring a man to life by 
repealing the law under which he was executed ! The law is executed, 
and is a dead letter on the statute-book — as dead as an Egyptian mummy ; 
and the officers dismissed are as far out of the service as if they had 
never been in it. What can you do ? I recur to that question. 

It seems to me, with all due deference to the judgment of other gen- 
tlemen, that the Secretary of the Navy himself, in his report, has inti- 
mated a step in the right direction. Without undertaking to state 
precisely what he means, or what is his plan, I may venture to suggest 
that it may be this : that whenever vacancies occur in the service by 
death, resignation, dismissal, or otherwise, they shall be open to be filled 
by the nomination of gentlemen who have been dismissed improperly 
from the service in consequence of the action of the late board. For 
example : if B, on the active list, shall resign, or die, or be dismissed, 
then A, who has been improperly dismissed under the operation of this 
law, may be nominated by the President to take the place, and thus be 
restored to his rightful position in the service — a position from which it 
will thus have been admitted he was improperly discharged. Unless we 
approach the question in some such form as that, I am at a loss to see 
what we can do. 

Even admitting that all the complaints which naval officers make, and 
all that are made by their friends on this floor, be true, you have no 
power to compel the President to nominate any one of the dismissed 
officers to the Senate. If you undertake to suggest to him that he ought 
to do it, and especially if you undertake to direct him to do it, he would 



406 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

probably take the bit in his mouth, as I am sure he ought to do, and 
refuse to do it. But, unless he does nominate these men in the mode I 
have suggested, how are you to get them back into the service? Accord- 
ing to my understanding of the law, there is but one way of restoring 
them to the service, and that by a nomination from the President, and 
confirmation by the -Senate. 

I shall not go into a discussion of cases of individual merit or demerit; 
but I should do injustice to myself if I did not say that I think the 
senator from Florida [Mr. Mallory], the chairman of the Committee on 
Naval Affairs, has taken the true position, so far as the individual case 
presented by the distinguished senator from Tennessee is concerned. I 
am sure I should be as slow as any senator, or as any citizen of the 
republic, to deny to Lieutenant Maury any honor which is his. That 
he has contributed largely to science, that he has reflected credit upon 
our common country, I am as ready to admit as any one here or else- 
where, and I am as proud as any senator that it is so ; but when you 
passed this law, what did you mean? I take it for granted you meant 
what you said — that you were passing a law to promote the efficiency 
of the navy. Is the efficiency of the navy to be promoted by having 
one man on shore for half a lifetime, pursuing scientific studies, and at 
the same time remaining in the line of promotion in the navy, while 
another of equal grade is encountering the dangers of the Atlantic Ocean, 
or the diseases incident to the coast of Africa, or is doubling the Cape 
of Good Hope, or is penetrating the icy northern seas ? Is the man who 
happens to be next to Lieutenant Maury on the list to be kept back 
through all after time from that promotion to which his sea service 
justly entitles him, because Lieutenant Maury happens to be distinguished 
in scientific pursuits, but who happens also to have no particular dis- 
tinction as a seafaring man ? 

I understood, most distinctly and particularly, when I voted for the 
law, that we were to do something which was to encourage our naval 
officers to pursue their profession in its fair, legitimate line — something 
which was to give them hope of promotion if they fairly won a title to 
promotion in the proper discharge of their professional duties. I did 
expect that those who had for a long series of years remained on shore 
in scientific or other pursuits, however honorable they might be, would 
be removed out of the way, so that those who were in the active pursuit 
of their profession might have an opportunity of rising in proportion to 
the service they had rendered. I am not, therefore, disappointed that 
Lieutenant Maury has been placed upon the reserved list Avith full pay. 
His position gives him an opportunity to pursue his scientific studies to 
his heart's content. He can add to that immense reputation which he 
already has, and which I am as proud as any other American to feel is 
yet a growing reputation ; and he will no longer stand in the way of the 
promotion of those who are engaged in active sea life. When I voted 
for the law, I anticipated just that sort of result, and I feel some surprise 
that Lieutenant Maury should desire, without encountering any of the 
risks or hardships of the sea, to stand in the way of those who do. If 
he takes the honors of civil life, let the mariners have those that belong 
to the sea. 

Nor am I more disappointed in the case of Commodore Stewart. I 
know the history of the gallant old commodore, and as an American I 



NAVAL RETIRING BOARD. . 407 

am proud of it. I am proud of all bis naval achievements, and of his 
glorious services ; but I did anticipate that a man of his great age would 
be removed from active service, and honorably retired. Sir, gentlemen 
must excuse me when I say it. The idea never crossed my mind that 
retiring these gentlemen was the slightest possible reflection upon their 
honor. If I could suppose that placing Commodore Stewart upon the 
reserved list was a reflection upon his professional, or upon his private 
character, I would be as ready to denounce the proceeding as any other 
man ; but I have never so regarded it, and do not so regard it now. 
Commodore Stewart has been almost literally worn out in the service of 
his country, and does it follow that he is dishonored because his coun- 
try prefers the services of a younger and more active man ? I know 
that the old commodore has the true ring of the metal in him. I know 
that he is true game. He does not appreciate the idea that he has 
grown old, and that his position at the head of the navy may, in the 
judgment of younger men than himself, impair the efiiciency of the ser- 
vice"; but it is for that reason alone — because he has been literally worn 
out in the service of his country — that he has been honorably retired. 
No reflection on his honor was contemplated ; no indignity was intended. 
No man living regards him as less honored by his country or his country- 
men to-day than he was this day twelve months ago. This proceeding 
cannot, by any possibility, in the judgment of the men of this day, or 
in the judgment of posterity, reflect the slightest discredit upon Commo- 
dore Stewart. The same may be said of Lieutenant Maury, and of other 
gentlemen. 

A great deal has been said in the Senate and out of it about this 
having been a secret and inquisitorial proceeding. Mr. President, you 
and I are opposed to secret meetings of all kinds ; you and I prefer open 
fair dealing ; but I can see — and I think if other gentlemen would look 
at this thing calmly they would see — many reasons why this investiga- 
tion ought to have been secret. While many gentlemen prefer, that 
whatever investigation occurred in regard to them should be open, there 
may be, there doubtless are, many others who would prefer that the 
investigation should not be quite so public ; and as neither the public 
interest, nor any other interest, was to be subserved in any high degree 
by an open proceeding, it was better to have it secret, than to wound 
the sensibilities of those who did not choose to have their private aff'airs 
publicly investigated. If public opinion were directed in the proper 
course, it seems to me that the sound judgment of the country would be, 
that, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, it must be assumed 
that none were dismissed for dishonorable conduct, or for conduct which 
was disreputable as gentlemen. I am not willing to investigate the 
causes of every man's dismissal. I will inquire into no man's private 
conduct, without I am bidden ; but I give notice to all the world, that 
if officers of the navy, or others, come here and demand investigation, I 
will give it to them ; and if they find transactions paraded before the 
world that had better slept in secret, it is their fault, not mine. 

I am willing to believe that no man has been dismissed the service for 
base conduct of any kind. 

Why assume, under the language of the law, that any man has been 
dismissed for dishonorable conduct ? There are many other reasons 
pointed out in the law for which he may have been dismissed or retired. 



408 • ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Why not assume that he was dismissed or retired for some one of these ? 
Age is one ; infirmity another ; incapacity, not brought upon himself by 
bad conduct, another ; none of these are dishonorable — incapacity arising 
from the \yant of an earnest pursuit of his profession, is another cause 
for retiring or dismissing officers. Retiring, or even dismissing, for such 
a cause, would convey no reflection upon his personal honor ; but it would 
simply show that the officer did not like his profession, and therefore had 
not pursued it with the eagerness necessary to the highest degree of 
efficiency. When you can find so many reasons in the law itself why 
officers should be retired, or furloughed, or dismissed the service entirely, 
that reflect no discredit on them, it is passing strange to see it assumed 
that all who are displaced are thereby dishonored. For myself, I am 
perfectly willing to believe that those who have been dismissed from the 
service are, in all the relations of private life, quite as honorable now as 
they were when they occupied positions on the active service list. I am so, 
because I can see a hundred reasons fairly dedncible from the law itself 
why they ought to have been dismissed, which do not reflect at all upon 
their honor as grentlemen. I am therefore slow to take the view of this 
case which other gentlemen have taken, that those who have been dis- 
missed, retired, and furloughed, have been in some degree dishonored. 
The proceeding was private, and it is therefore assumed that reflections 
on private character were cast or meditated — verily, the wicked flee 
when no man pursues. The man who is strong in his own conscious 
rectitude, ought not to be so easily alarmed as to the judgment that 
others may pronounce upon him. 

But I did not rise to discuss this question at any considerable length. 
I think this matter can be so arranged as to carry out the objects of the 
law, in promoting the efficiency of the navy, and at the same time guard 
the innocent and meritorious against all injustice. This may be done, 
as I intimated before, bv the Executive declining to fill vacancies in 
the service by regular promotion, and leaving them open to be filled by 
the nomination and confirmation of such dismissed officers as have been 
improperly dealt by. This may be done. If the Senate acts in concert 
with the Executive, I feel assured this will be done. If any gentleman 
can suggest a better remedy, I shall be glad to hear it. The plan com- 
mends itself to me in this, that all who get back will do so on their 
merits, and not under the smoke created by a general emeute raised 
against the law. 

I am not going to vote to put things back to where they were before 
the law passed. We have no power to do that, and I would not do it if 
I could. 

After sixteen or seventeen years' constant complaints from naval 
officers of every grade, that there was inefficiency in the service ; and 
after Congress and the Executive have united in declaring that the navy 
did need reformation, I am not now going to stultify myself by proclaim- 
inoj on the record that no reform was ever necessarv, and that I will 
therefore undo all that has been done, and go back to the beginning. I 
am willing to give relief as far as I can, whenever justice demands it, 
but I want it understood that every case must stand on its own merits. 
This general outcry against the naval board will not move me one jot 
one way or the other. 

If errors have been committed, as doubtless there have been, I will do 



NAVAL RETIRING BOARD. 409 

whatever is in my power to repair them. If any man has been unjustly 
dismissed, I will do anything in my power to restore him to his proper 
position ; but I will not, at one move, restore to the navy, by my vote, 
all the materiel that has been cast out of it, good, bad, and indifferent. 
Naval officers may have persuaded me into an error; they may have 
persuaded me to believe that there was inefficiency in the service when 
there was really none ; but I listened to their complaints, and brought 
my mind to the conclusion that there was inefficiency, and that pruning 
and lopping off were necessary. I listened to the various and successive 
heads of the Navy Department, and heard the same story. The whole 
country became full of that complaint. There was a universal belief 
that reform in the navy was necessary. You have had the reform, and 
now you have as universal complaint against it. If we believed all that 
we hear in this chamber, we should be brought to the opinion that there 
was not a solitary man in the navy who was not perfectly efficient, afloat 
or ashore, and that, therefore, nothing in the way of reform was neces- 
sary. I do not believe that story, and I do not mean to vote as if I 
believed it. 



On the 6th of February, 1856, Mr. Brown again spoke on the same 
subject as follows : — 

I do not intend, Mr. President, to review the speech of my friend 
from Tennessee ; but it seems to me that, in his resolution and in his 
speech, he has fallen into some errors which ought to be corrected. 

The whole censure thrown upon the Naval Board, not only by ray 
friend from Tennessee, but by other senators, seems to me, with all due 
deference to the superior judgment of other gentlemen, to be out of 
place, and arises from a misconception of what was the true relation of 
this board to the law and to the Executive of the United States. The 
board have not dismissed any man from the public service. They were 
simply authorized, under the law, to advise the President who ought to 
be stricken from the list of naval officers, who ought to be furloughed, 
and who ought to be retired on full pay or on the reserved list. Their 
proceedings were absolutely null and void without the approval of the 
President. They had no power to do anything beyond simply making 
a recommendation, and that needed the confirmation of the Executive 
before it became in anywise obligatory or effective — the Secretary of the 
Navy, of course, intervening between the board and the President. 
Therefore, sir, I hold that all the censure which is heaped on them, all 
the complaints that they have not kept a record, are wrong. Who had 
the right to demand a record, and who had the right to review that 
record, if any had been kept ? The President, and nobody else — the 
Secretary of the Navy, however, intervening between the President and 
the board. 
I Sir, we are not here to revise the action of the board. When the law 

f was passed, the Senate reserved to itself no such revisory authority. 

Congress authorized the appointment of a board to advise the President 
I as to who should be dismissed, who should be furloughed, and who should 

' be placed on the reserved list. It belonged to the President, and to him 

alone, under the law, to revise the action of the board. With that action 
I hold that the Senate has no concern. It is no business of ours whether 



410 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

they kept a record of their proceedings or not. The President has ap- 
proved the action of the board, and from that approval certain results 
have been reached ; and you are now asked to concur, not with the ac- 
tion of the board, but with the action of the President. Because cer- 
tain parties have been removed, others furloughed, and others put upon 
the retired list, promotions have become necessary ; and the President 
hag made his nominations for those promotions, and you are here asked 
to confirm or reject those nominations. 

I do not pretend to say, that censure belongs anywhere, but I say that 
least of all can it attach to the board. Suppose that the President of 
the United States, without the authority of Congress, as he would have 
an unquestioned right to do, under the Constitution, had chosen to ap- 
point a board to advise him as to who should be dropped from the naval 
list, who should be furloughed, and who should be placed on the retired 
list, if one had existed— suppose he had taken it into his head to exercise 
his constitutional function to strike certain gentlemen from the list of 
naval officers, and, not feeling quite sure in his own mind who ought to 
be dropped, he had himself constituted a naval board to advise him— 
in that action, I hold that they would have been responsible to the Presi- 
dent, and to nobody else. Instead, however, of things taking that direc- 
tion, Congress by a direct statute authorized the appointment of such a 
board. Why was that done ? Congress believed that the President had 
not exercised his constitutional functions by striking inefficient officers 
off the list. They believed that the navy required reducing ; that it re- 
quired pruning ; that its dead limbs should be lopped off. With a view 
to enable the President to understand who were inefficient. Congress pro- 
vided for a board simply to advise him. 

The President, I say again, might very properly have demanded 
of the board, in writing, the reasons why they made this or that recom- 
mendation ; but it was for the President, and not for the Senate, to 
approve the action of the board. There was nothing in the law, there 
is nothing in the policy of the government, there is nothing in its past 
action, that justifies the Senate in demanding the reasons why this or 
that recommendation was made to the President. Our business is to re- 
vise the action of the Executive, and not that of the board, which was 
simply advisory to the President. 

Now, sir, have you any right to demand of the President the reasons 
why he approved the action of the board ? Have you any right to de- 
mand of a coordinate and equal branch of the government the reasons 
^ why it has displaced certain officers, and sent us the names of certain 
^ others to take their places ? I hold most emphatically that you have no 
such rights. If you think proper to reject a nomination made by the 
President, you may do so for reasons which are satisfactory to your- 
selves ; but you have no business to demand from the President why he 
has dismissed this officer or that, nor why he has made a nomination to 
fill a particular place. As well might the President come and demand 
of you the reasons Avhy you have passed laws, or why you have refused 
to confirm nominations. 

The departments of the government are separate, distinct, and inde- 
pendent, each from the other. The legislative branch has no right to 
demand of the judiciary the reasons why they act thus and so ; the 
legislative branch has no business to demand of the Executive why he 



NAVAL RETIRING BOARD. 411 

acts thus or so ; nor has either of them the right to demand of the legis- 
lature "why we act thus or so. If our action is harmonious, it is well ; 
but if any one of the departments of the government disagree, the action 
of the whole must necessarily fail. 

I confess I do not like the idea, and I do not fully understand the 
object of undertaking to pass by the President, and throw the censure 
wholly on the board, who were never required to act with any responsi- 
bility to the Senate, or to Congress, or to the country. It was simply 
an intervening board, authorized and appointed under a law to advise 
the Executive what he ought to do. When they gave their advice, their 
functions entirely ceased ; and if the President had not approved what 
they did, their whole action would have fallen to the ground and become 
null and void. The President, therefore, being the revisory power, had 
the right to demand the reasons why they recommended to him to do 
thus and so ; but as they made no recommendations to the Senate, and 
as the Senate is not called upon to revise their action in any way, and 
reserved to itself no power to make this revision when the law was 
passed, I maintain that this demand for reasons is altogether wrong and ♦ 
out of place. 

My friend from Tennessee says he would demand the reasons why 
each and every man was displaced, and, though the assignment of those 
reasons might fall with crushing power on ninety-nine men, if their as- 
signment was necessary to rescue one fair character, he would still de- 
mand them. That sentiment is noble enough ; but the case did not re- 
quire the enunciation of any such sentiment. Some of the officers who 
have been retired have sent in their applications by memorial, and have 
demanded an investigation into the causes why they have been displaced ; 
and those memorials have been sent to the Committee on Naval Affairs. 
You are not to conclude in advance that that committee will not dis- 
charge their duty and their whole duty. 

By what authority do senators assume that the Committee on Naval 
Affairs will not make all the investigation which the case requires ; that 
they will not report all the facts which are involved in each particular 
case separately, on the memorial which has been referred to them ? It 
seems to me that the passage of such a resolution as this distrusts the ' 
integrity of your own committee. I hold it to be the duty of the Com- 
mittee on Naval Affairs to report on the separate cases which have been 
referred to them, as much so as to report on the memorial of any other 
citizen of the republic who feels that he has been aggrieved by the 
action of the government. When those reports are made, let us con- 
sider each case on its own distinct merits. I rise solemnly to protest 
against this mingling of the guilty with the innocent, and this idea of 
making a hotch-potch business of the whole concern, and dragging pri- 
vate gentlemen's private affairs before the Senate, and before the world, 
when they have made no application to be thus dragged before the 
Senate and before the country. If there be a single man on the list of 
dismissed officers, who feels that his reputation is more secure in that 
privacy where he now stands, than it would be by having it paraded 
before the Senate, I would leave him to his repose. I am not willing 
that one man should have his reputation fairly established, as my friend 
from Tennessee says, by dragging one hundred others with him, who 
think their reputation would be blasted by this sort of investigation. 



412 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

I take it for granted that those who believe they have a fair record 
behind, and are willing to stand the test of investigation, have sent in 
their memorials, and have demanded the investigation ; and though Con- 
gress might sit until the end of this century, I would give it to them, 
and give it to them to their heart's content. If a record shall be 
brought here which will not stand the test, I notify them, I notify their 
friends, and all the world, that I will discuss their private characters 
with all the freedom with which I would express my views on a public 
measure, because they come here to demand it. 

I will not assume in advance, by any vote of mine, that the Com- 
mittee on Naval Affairs of the Senate will not discharge their duty by 
investigating this matter to the bottom on each man's distinct and 
separate petition. I think I can see in this whole proceeding here a 
disposition to get all these officers off by making a general commotion 
and general row over the whole thing, so that the responsibility shall 
rest equally alike upon the innocent and the guilty ; and those half-dozen 
or so of innocent men who have been discharged, are to drag the great 
car which is to carry them all back again to place. I am against that. 
I believe men have been dismissed who ought to hav( been dismissed ; I 
believe men have been furloughed who ought to have been furloughed; 
I believe men have been put on the reserved list who ought to have been 
put there. That some have been dismissed who ought to have been re- 
tained, I have no question. I am for winnowing the whole matter, and 
for getting the wheat out of the chaff, and taking care of the wheat and 
throwing the chaff to the four winds of heaven. I do not mean, so far 
as my vote or my action is concerned, to take all the chaff, with a few 
grains of wheat, back again. 

If I am not mistaken, the distinguished senator from Kentucky [Mr. 
Crittenden] advocated the idea, and certainly made an argument to prove 
that the whole law might be repealed, with a declaratory clause that things 
should be restored to their former position ; in other words, that you 
should treat the law as a certain election was once treated in a sister 
state — as though it had never been passed. I shall not take issue with 
the distinguished senator from Kentucky on a law point ; but I wish to 
make a suggestion. The repeal of the law, with a declaration that 
things shall be restored to the position which they occupied before the 
law was passed, could mean nothing else than that the Secretary of the 
Navy and the President had so bunglingly executed the law that they 
had thrown things into inextricable confusion, and that therefore it was 
necessary to rub out all that had been done, and make a new start. 
What else can it mean but that they not only failed to execute the law 
in its true spirit, and according to its true intent, but that they have 
made "confusion worse confounded," so that there is no possibility of 
making sense out of their proceeding. Sir, when you send an act to 
the President to be approved, with that implied declaration on its face, 
do you think he will approve it ? Do you think he will go for upsetting 
all that he has done under the law, when your declaration can amount 
to nothing else than that his proceeding is so foolish, and so absurd, and 
so utterly without order, that you can make nothing out of it ? I do 
not know what he would do in such a case. I am not ashamed to 
acknowledge that my relations Avith him are not of a character to justify 
me in representing him here, as I do not represent him ; but he is 



NAVAL RETIRING BOARD. 413 

President of the United States, and I suppose, indeed I know, that he 
has a full and proper appreciation of the dignity of his position, and of 
the rights which attach to it. If you should undertake, by an act of 
this nature, to make him stultify himself, to make him admit, by the ap- 
proval of your act, that he had so bunglingly executed the law of Con- 
gress that the whole thing was thrown into utter confusion, I take it for 
granted he would say, " I saw clearly through the thing from the begin- 
ning ; I know what I meant ; this is a trick of politicians to get me into 
difficulty ; and I do not mean to put my signature to my own death- 
warrant." I take it for granted he would take some such view as that. 

Now, sir, I understand that we have already before us, if not directly, 
at least sufficiently for us to comprehend them, two propositions for 
getting out of this difficulty. One of them is to keep open the places 
in the navy that shall be made vacant by death or resignation, to be 
filled by officers who have been improperly dismissed from the service ; 
in other words, instead of carrying on the line of promotion in regular 
order, that those vacancies shall be left open, so that men who have been 
improperly dismissed may be restored. Some senator the other day 
made a good deal of complaint about the case of Commodore Stewart. 
It so turns out — and I mention it certainly with as much regret as any 
other senator can feel — that the position from which he was displaced is 
already vacant. If the President, in his wisdom, should think proper 
to restore Commodore Stewart, there is the place ready, waiting for him, 
in consequence of the unfortunate death of one of his associates. Va- 
cancies in the same way will occur in every grade of the service which 
may be filled by nominations by the President. If this does not satisfy 
us, another plan is presented of passing a law providing for a sufficient 
number of temporary captains, commanders, and lieutenants, to take in 
all who have been unjustly dismissed from the service. 

I am ready to go for either of these propositions ; I have no choice 
between them. If the judgment of the Senate shall be against both, I 
shall then be ready to go for anything else which shall be suggested 
from any quarter which shall do perfect and entire justice to all parties ; 
but as I said to the Senate on a former occasion, and as I now repeat, 
I do not mean to vote to restore things as they stood before the law, 
even though I may have the power to do it. In the first place, I do not 
believe you have the power to do it ; and if you had, I do not believe * 
you ought to exercise it. If any injustice has been done, at least half 
a dozen modes may be pointed out by which you can do justice to those 
who have been wronged. There does not exist, there cannot by possi- 
bility exist, any sort of necessity for your repealing the law with the 
declaration that things shall be restored to the position which they 
occupied before the law was passed. I felt it due, Mr. President, to the 
position which I occupied in this matter, in consequence of some 
remarks which I made on a former occasion, to say this much. I do 
not think I shall ever allude to the subject again. 

Mr. Jones, of Tennessee. I wish to ask ray friend from Mississippi 
a question before he resumes his seat. I do not mean to follow him in 
his argument. I understand him to assume that this is the act of the 
President, and that the responsibility is with the President, because all 
power over the subject is vested in him. Ilis whole argument goes on 
the assumption that the President is omnipotent in all questions of re- 



414 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

moval, and that therefore the President is responsible for this whole 
thing. 

The senator tells us that there are two remedies. What are they ? 
One, to keep open the vacancies that may occur by death or resignation ; 
and the other, to provide for a temporary increase of the grades of the 
navy. 

Does not the omnipotence of the President in dismissing apply just 
as strongly in restoring as in dismissing ? What is the use of talking 
about your remedy when this power of omnipotence has to be consulted 
at last ? I do not believe in the omnipotence of any man ; but if the 
President alone is responsible for this proceeding, being omnipotent in 
removals, he is equally omnipotent in restorations and nominations. 

I can tell my honorable friend, however, that the President is not so 
omnipotent as he supposes. That was manifested in the case of a very 
great and good man, for whom I cherish as kind feelings as any senator 
on this floor, and more so than some do. The contest v/ith him showed 
that no president can be considered omnipotent. Have you not seen 
promotions in the army of the United States suspended here for two or 
three years, on the single application of one man ? Where, then, is the 
omnipotence of your President ? Have you not seen nominations sent 
here, and sent back to him, and returned to us, and sent back to him 
again, and kept in abeyance until the voice of the sovereignty of the 
states of this Union was heard in the confirmatory power of the Senate ? 
He is not omnipotent ; and so far as I am concerned, I shall never sur- 
render that question ; I will never vote to confirm one man whose nomi- 
nation he sends here until I think the injured men have had a fair hear- 
ing. The Senate have refused, on many occasions, to confirm nomina- 
tions ; they have a right to refuse again ; and the omnipotence of the 
President is not an argument that extends far with me. 

Mr. Brown. I said nothing about the omnipotence of the President. 
With all due deference to the acumen of my friend from Tennessee, I 
must say that I said nothing from which, in my opinion, he could have 
drawn any such inference. I spoke of the President's powers under this 
law. I said that the law itself gave him the right to approve tlie action 
of the board, and that until it was approved by him, it amounted 
literally to nothing. If the President had chosen to withhold his ap- 
proval from the action of the board, things would have stood precisely 
as they did before the law was passed. If he had chosen to approve in 
part, and to disapprove in part, it was his right to do so. My position 
was, that the action of the board amounted to nothing without the ap- 
proval of the President ; that it was simply an advisory body ; and that 
therefore the censure heaped upon the board was unjust in every sense 
of the term. 

The senator from Tennessee says, he will not vote to confirm nomina- 
tions. Possibly, I may agree with him in that respect. That it is the 
right of the Senate to reject the nominations, one and all, is true beyond 
all controversy. The question beyond that is, as to the position in which 
you will leave the navy if you do reject the nominations which the Presi- 
dent has made to fill the vacancies which have been occasioned ; and 
when the first nomination shall be taken up for confirmation, it will be 
time enough to discuss that proposition. The dealing which we have 
now, is not as to the point whether we will confirm nominations, but it 



BADGER AMENDMENT. 415 

is, as I understand the discussion to-day, as to whether the whole 
censure of this proceeding shall rest on the board for having made cer- 
tain recommendations which the President has approved. 

Now, sir, we all know perfectly well that it is the right of the Presi- 
dent to remove men from office — a right which he exercises every day in 
civil life. He removes a foreign minister, or a cabinet minister, or the 
collector of one of your important ports, or any other officer that you 
choose, or whole scores of them together ; and he sends in nominations 
of gentlemen to take their places : is it your right to demand of the 
President why he made those removals? No. If you think the 
removals have been made from improper motives, and without just and 
proper reason, you may reject the successor and leave the office for the 
time being vacant ; but you cannot, I maintain again, demand of the 
President why he made the removals. That attempt was tried during 
the days of " Old Hickory," and he resisted it, and very properly re- 
sisted it, as an encroachment on his rights as the executive of the 
nation ; and he never would assign reasons why he dismissed anybody 
from office. He would not do it because you had no right to demand it. 
You had no right to demand it in matters relating to offices in civil life ; 
and if you had no right to make the demand in such cases, I maintain 
that you have no right to make the same demand in reference to men in 
the navy or army service. You may, as the senator from Tennessee 
suggests, refuse to confirm the nominations of the successors of those 
removed. That is your privilege, and that is the whole extent of it. If 
you fail to be satisfied that the man was remaved for proper cause, you 
may, on that account, if you choose, refuse to confirm his successor, and 
leave the office vacant. That is your privilege ; but it is the privilege 
of the President to give reasons for the removal, or to refuse to give 
them, according as he thinks proper. This is my understanding of the 
rights of the different departments of the government. 



BADGER AMENDMENT. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 20, 1854, ON THE 

BADGER AMENDMENT. 

The honorable senator from North Carolina having felt it his duty to 
give to the Senate and the country the reasons which influenced him, 
and which, in his opinion, justified him in moving the proviso when the 
Nebraska bill was under consideration, and the two distinguished sena- 
tors from South Carolina and Virginia having justified themselves before 
the Senate and the country in voting for that proviso, I wish to say 
a word in justification of myself for having voted against it. 

I was one of five southern men who recorded their votes against that 
proviso ; and though I had stood alone in the Senate, I should have 
voted against it. When I was called upon first to vote for the Nebraska 
bill, I understood that its only dealing with the Missouri compromise was 



416 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

to repeal it. And the reason given for that repeal was, as I understood 
it, that originally it had been passed in violation of the Constitution, and 
in derogation of the rights of the southern people. This being so, a 
returning sense of justice, as I supposed, had induced our northern 
brethren to come forward to strike it from the statute-book. That, I 
understood to be what Congress was called upon to do, and all that it 
was expected to do. If that had been done, and notliing more, we 
should, in my judgment, have been restored to the position which we 
occupied before the passage of the Missouri act. Upon what ground 
does the South claim its repeal, and upon what ground is it conceded to 
us, let me ask honorable gentlemen ? We claim its repeal, because ori- 
ginally, as I said before, it was passed in violation of the Constitution, 
and in derogation of our rights ; and it is to be repealed, that we may 
be restored to the rights which we had before it was passed. If we are 
not restored to those rights, I submit to you, Mr. President, and to the 
country, the repeal of it is not worth a rush to us. Why should we 
work ourselves into a passion, excite the country, and revive all this 
slavery agitation upon a mere abstraction ? and I hold that it is an 
abstraction, unless Ave are restored to the rights we had in the territory 
before the passage of the Missouri compromise. If we get nothing by 
the repeal, why repeal it ? I dare say that the Nebraska bill stands, in 
the minds of southern people to-day, as it stood in yours and mine at 
the beginning — as a simple proposition to repeal the INIissouri compro- 
mise, and nothing more. When the distinguished author of the bill [Mr. 
Douglas] came forward with his amendment — the one which the senator 
from North Carolina read this morning, and which I would reproduce if I 
had it before me* — I hesitated long as to whether I would vote for it. It 
was doing a little more than I felt we had contracted to do in the begin- 
ing ; but finding older senators, men of more experience, more learning, 
more ability in every way, disposed to go for it, I finally gave up my 
objections. 

I hesitated, sir, because, among other things, I saw in it a departure 
from the original liberal and just purpose of restoring us to the position 
we had before the act of 1820. If we had the right to introduce slaves 
into this territory before the restriction act of 1820, the repeal of that 
act would have restored us to that right. The amendment moved by 
the senator from Illinois seemed to me to be a denial of that restoration. 
But, as this construction did not meet the sanction of older senators, 1 
abandoned it. My anxiety to act in harmony with my southern friends 
gave an easier impulse to my decision. Imagine my surprise when I 
heard the senator from North Carolina gravely contending that the 
amendment proposed by the senator from Illinois precluded the idea of 
restoring the South to its original position, and that his proviso only 
expressed, in language more distinct, what had already been expressed 
in adopting the amendment of the senator from Illinois. 

Allow me to say, Mr. President, that I by no means concur with the 
senators from North Carolina and Virginia, that this bill is all the South 
has ever asked. If their reading of it is correct, it falls immeasurably 

* This is the amendment alluded to: — "It being the true intent and meaning of 
this act. not to legislate slavei-j into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom, 
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic insti- 
tutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." 



BADGER AMENDxMENT. 417 

short of that point. The South has asked to be left alone in the enjoy- 
ment of all her rights — not to be legislated into or out of the territories. 
In 1820, Congress legislated her out of Nebraska. In 1854, it is pro- 
posed to repeal this unjust legislation, and restore her to her lost posi- 
tion. But the senator from Illinois comes forward with an amendment, 
which the senator from North Carolina insists precludes this idea (I take 
it for granted no one questions that but for the act of 1820 the southern 
people could have introduced slavery into this territory). The idea of 
restoring the French laws by repealing the Missouri act is wholly dis- 
pelled, we are told, by the language of the amendment first proposed. 
But to make assurance doubly sure, the senator from North Carolina 
brings in his proviso, which says in terms that no hnv existing prior to 
1820, giving sanction or protection to slavery m these territories, shall 
be revived or put in force. Suppose there were laws in these ter- 
ritories, prior to 1820, sanctioning and protecting slavery, as I think 
there were, and that you repealed them by the act of 1820' — as you did, 
what docs justice demand of you now ? — not to legislate slavery into 
the country, no one asks that, but to repeal your repealing act, and put 
us back where you found us. This would be non-intervention. But it 
is not non-intervention for you to keep in force the laws of Mexico, which 
abolished slavery in Utah and New Mexico, and to repeal the laws of 
France, which tolerated slavery in Nebraska and Kansas. 

I cannot concur with my friend from North Carolina in the opinion, 
that in the simple act of repealing the Missouri Compromise, and thereby 
restoring the laws in force before its passage (admitting that those laws 
sanctioned and protected slavery), we should be legislating slavery into 
the country. We found laws in force there sanctioning slavery ; we 
repealed those laws in 1820. If, in' 1854, we repeal the repealing act, 
and thereby place the original law in force, the case will stand as if we 
had not acted at all. So far from legislating slavery into the country, ' 
we shall simply leaye things where we found them. 

Mr. President, in voting for the amendment of the senator from Illi- 
nois, I stood on the outer verge of the precipice. One hair's breadth 
further, I felt, would put me overboard. When the senator from North 
Carolina brought forward his proviso, I said promptly I would not vote 
for it. The senator has explained that it makes no alteration in the 
text of the bill as it had been amended. In this he and I differ. But 
suppose it does not ; then why ask us to vote for it ? If it left us where 
we stood before, why was it urged upon us ? 

I felt at the time that it was another concession ; that it was still an- 
other and wider departure from the original purpose of the bill — the 
simple purpose of repealing the Missouri act, and leaving the South 
where we found her — and so regarding it, I could not consent to vote for 
it. If the South is not restored to her position, is it not a mockery to 
talk about non-intervention ? She has lost her position in the territories, 
and by the acts of Congress, and by those alone. She had protection 
for slaves by virtue of the French laws prior to 1820, in these territories. 
You took it away by the act of 1820. You not only do not restore this 
specific right in 1854, but you have said, in so many words, it shall not 
be restored. 

_ I beg leave to dissent from another view of this subject taken by the 
distinguished senator from North Carolina: but — no, I will not pursue 
27 ^ 



418 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the discussion. I simply rose to give the reasons which influenced me in 
voting against the proviso of my friend from North Carolina. I felt 
called upon to do this from the course the discussion had taken this 
morning ; and now having done this, and not desiring to widen the field 
of debate by the introduction of new topics, I take my seat. 



AMERICAN FLAG IN MEXICO. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE £)¥ THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 7th OF JANUARY, 

1856, ON THE CLAIMS OF GENERAL JOHN A. QUITMAN TO THE HONOR 

OF HAVING RAISED THE FIRST AMERICAN FLAG IN MEXICO. 

. Mr. Foot. I ask the Senate now to proceed to the consideration of 
the resolution which I introduced this day week, in reference to Colonel 
Roberts. I understand that the senator from Mississippi [Mr. BrownJ 
desires to submit some remarks upon it before it shall be referred to the 
Committee on Military Affairs, that being the motion pending. I intro- 
duced at the same time, a joint resolution to request the President to 
cause a sword, with suitable devices, to be presented to Colonel Roberts, 
in testimony of the high sense entertained by Congress of his gallantry 
and good conduct at the storming of Chepultepec and taking of the 
city of Mexico ; but inasmuch as the Senate are acting upon a determi- 
nation not to receive bills or resolutions requiring the coordinate action 
of the other House, until that branch of Congress shall be organized, 
that joint resolution is withdrawn for the time being. 

The motion was agreed to : and the Senate resumed the consideration 
of the following resolution : — 

Resolved, That the report of Benjamin S. Roberts, Captain of the Rifles, made to 
General Twiggs, on returning to hiai the American flag which had been the first 
planted upon the Capitol of Mexico, and which he had intrusted to the keeping of 
Captain Roberts in the storming of Chepultepec, and the taking of the city of Mexico, 
bearing date "City of Mexico, 17th September, 1847," be taken from the tiles in the 
oflBce of the Secretary of the Senate, and be printed ; and that the President pro tem- 
pore of the Senate cause an engrossed copy thereof to be deposited in the Department 
uf State with the flag whose history it gives, and which has already been deposited 
in said department by order of the Senate. 

The pending question was on Mr. Foot's motion to refer the resolu- 
tion to the Committee on Military Affairs. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President, it will be recollected by the older mem- 
bers of this body that the flag mentioned in the resolution was intro- 
duced into the Senate on the second of June, 1848, by Mr. Davis, then 
a senator from Mississippi, and now Secretary of War. On the 1st of 
July of that year, as is shown by the journal, he presented a document 
in relation to that flag. The document then presented is the one which 
is now called for from the files, by the senator from Vermont. On the 
introduction of that document, as is shown by the debates in Congress, 
a discussion arose in the Senate between Mr. Davis and Mr. Foote, of 
Mississippi, which the curious on that subject may find at page 890 of 
the Congressional Globe of that year. I shall not detain the Senate 



I 



AMERICAN FLAG IN MEXICO. 419 

by reading it ; it is sufficient for me to remark that Senator Foote 
thought that, in the paper which was then presented, injustice was done 
to Major-General Quitman, who commanded the forces under whom, 
and at the head of whom, the first flag was placed upon the Capitol of 
Mexico. The paper which is offered does not disclose the fact that 
General Quitman was in the action at all, had anything to do with the 
command, or gave any orders which led to the planting of that flag 
upon the walls of Mexico. Because of this unintentional injustice — 
I am willing to admit that it is unintentional — to the major-general 
commanding the forces, senators at that day objected to having this 
paper placed upon the files of the State Department, as giving the cor- 
rect history of the transaction. It is noted in the debates that an 
angry controversy arose in reference to it. That portion of the debates 
has been suppressed, and very properl}'- suppressed in my judgment. 

As I intend to make the paper part of my remarks — I mean the one 
alluded to by the senator from Vermont, which he desires to have , 
printed, and enrolled on parchment, and filed in the State Department — 
I send it to the Secretary's desk, and ask to have it read. 

The Secretary read it as follows : — 

City of Mexico, September 17, 1847. 

Sir : I have the honor to return the American Hag you intrusted to my keeping in 
the storming of Chepultepec and the taking of the city of Mexico. Your charge to 
uie was : " I expect that^a^ to be the first planted upon the Capitol of Mexico." The 
commission has been executed, and the first American flag that ever floated upon the 
Palace of the Capitol of Mexico is now returned to you. 

It was also the first planted on the five-gun battery stormed and carried by the 
Kifle regiment between Chepultepec and the Garita. 

It was also the first planted on the batteries at the Garita, and the first on th.e 
Citadel of Mexico. 

It was carried by Sergeant. Manly, of " F" Company, whom I selected to bear so 
distinguished a flag, and the anticipations I entertained of his doing honor to the 
banner of his country were not disappointed. I desire to commend him to your spe- 
cial consideration. 

This flag would have been returned through him, but for a severe wound which 
confines him to his quarters. It is proper that I should state that I was not with the 
flag when planted on the battery at the Garita, and when planted on the battery 
between the Garita and the city, having been detained to guard the prisoners taken 
at the five-gun battery assaulted by my storming party. On inspection, you will 
perceive that this flag has been pierced six times by the balls of the enemy. 
I have the honor to be, with high regard, &c., 

B. S. Roberts, Captain Rifles. 

General D. E. Twiggs, Commanding Second Division. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President : It will be seen, from the reading of 
that letter, that I was correct in saying that it makes no mention what- 
ever of Major-General Quitman. Captain Roberts seems to have 
received this flag from General Twiggs, who was not in command at the 
time when this service was performed. It will be further remarked, 
that Captain Roberts states in his dispatch that the flag was "the first 
planted on the five-gun battery stormed and carried by the rifle regi- 
ment between Chepultepec and the Garita." He also says that it was 
"the first planted on the batteries at the Garita, and the first on the 
citadel of Mexico." He afterwards remarks, however: — 

" It is proper that I should state that I was not with the flag when planted on the 
battery at the Garita, and when planted on the battery between the Garita and the 
city." 



j20 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

If Colonel Roberts was not present, tlie history of the transaction 
ought to state how he came in possession of the fact, that this precise 
ilag was the first raised at those two points, for he admits himself not 
to have been personally present, and, therefore, he must have derived 
his information from some other quarter. Out of that has grown some 
controversy in which I do not wish to entangle myself ; but it is better, 
when we are settling a transaction of this sort, in which the reputation 
of gentlemen who have rendered distinguished services to the country is 
somewhat involved, to turn our attention to the report of the General- 
in-Chief. I ask that the committee who shall have this question in 
charge, will turn their attention to Major-Gencral Scott's report, dated 
" Headquarters of the Army, National Palace of Mexico, September 
ISih, 1S47," to be found in the first volume of Senate Documents, first 
session, thirtieth Congress, 1847 and 1848, beginning at page 37a. 
From that paper it will be seen that the General-in-Chief, after giving 
an account of certain consultations between officers of the army, and 
stating the views expressed by them, says : — 

" Those views I repeatedly in the course of tlie day einnnuinicated to Major-General 
(Quitman; but being in hut"pursuit— gallant himself and ahlj supported by Briga- 
dier-Generals Shields and Smith— Shields badly wounded before t'hepultepec, and 
refusing to retire — as well as by all the officers and men of the column, Quitman con- 
tinued to press forward under flank and direct fires ; carried an intermediate battery 
of two guns, and then the gate, before two o'clock in the afternoon, but not without 
proportionate loss, increased by his steady maintenance of that position." 

After giving some further account of the day's transactions, he 
says : — 

" Quitman within the city, adding several defences to the position he had won, and 
sheltering his corps as well as practicable, now awaited the result of daylight under 
the guns of the formidable citadel, yet to be subdued." 

After the whole fighting was over, General Scott gives an account of a 
visit of a deputation of the city — tho city council — who waited upon 
him, for the purpose of surrendering the city on terms which he promptly 
rejected, and insisted upon taking it upon his own terms. After the 
interview he says : — 

"At the termination of the interview with the city deputation, I communicated, 
about daylight, orders to Worth and Quitman to advance slowly and cautiously (to 
guard against treachery) towards the heart of the city, and to occupy its stronger and 
more commanding points. Quitman proceeded to the great plaza or square, planted 
guards, and hoisted the colors of the United States on the National Palace, containing 
the halls of Congress and executive departments of federal Mexico." 

Now, sir, when it is proposed to do honor to national flags because 
they were first planted upon the walls of Mexico, I do not choose that 
the name of the major-general in command, especially when that major- 
general is a distinguished citizen of my own state, shall be wholly omit- 
ted from the record without some effort on ray part, as his representa- 
tive in this body, to see justice done him. I am as willing as the 
senator from Vermont to award all possible honors to Captain Roberts, 
but I will never consent to see the honors of the nation bestowed upon 
a captain in the line to the exclusion of his major-general : and especi- 
ally when, in doing honor to that captain, for aught that appears on the 
paper, Major-General Twiggs, who was not in the field at all upon that 



AMERICAN FLAG IN MEXICO. 421 

occasion, is represented as the general who gave the order to bear the 
flag. Sir, the man who in after years shall examine the archives of the 
State Department and find this paper there, if he knew nothing else of 
the transaction, would be very apt to conclude that Major-General 
Twiggs was in command, and that Major-General Quitman was not in 
the field at all, whereas the reverse was the case. 

I hope that the committee who shall have this question in charge will 
sift it to the bottom. Let Captain (now Colonel) Roberts have all the 
honor that is due to him. Heaven knows I would not pluck a solitary 
leaf from the laurel that adorns his brow. That he is a gallant soldier, 
I am perfectly willing and ready to admit. That he exposed his person 
and endangered his life in defence of his country, I am as ready to 
acknowledge as the senator from Vermont. But I am not willing to 
admit that he planted the first flag that was ever placed upon tiie walls 
of Mexico, and did it of his own will — or by the order of Major-General 
TwiffCTs. 

Sir, I have here a letter to which these squabbles gave rise when this 
question was up before. It is a letter written by Captain Roberts him- 
self, dated St. Louis, Missouri, July 12, 1848. I send it to the secre- 
tary's desk, and ask to have it read. I present this letter as the true 
history of the transaction rather than the one which is found on the 
files, and which my friend from Vermont proposes to honor. Although 
it does not, I think, come up to the history of the transaction as detailed 
by Major-General Scott, the General-in-Chief, it docs make honorable 
mention of General Quitman, who was in command. 

The secretary read the letter, as follows : — 

St. Louis, Missouri, July 12, 1848. 
To the Editor of the ''Union:" 

I have noticed, thrmi^li the Washington correspondent of the "Journal of Con> 
nierce," of date July 1st, giving the debate in the Senate of tliat day, that misunder- 
standings, out of which difficulties may grow, have arisen between the friends of 
Generals Twiggs and Quitman touching the fiag presented by General Twiggs to 
Congress. It may be proper before mischief can arise, or these misunderstandings 
grow further, to correct the errors that seem to be entertained relating to the history 
of this flag. 1 know its entire history. It is as folloios : 

On the 12th of September, General Smith called for two hundred and fifty picked 
men from General Twiggs's division, as a storming party for the assault of Chepul- 
tepec. I Avas selected by General Smith to command the party from his brigade, and, 
after the party was organized, was taken by him to General Twiggs's headquarters, 
where was this flag, which General Twiggs gave to me, saying in substance, among 
other things, " This is a flag I wish to go with the storming party from my division. 
Let me hear that it is the first flag on Chepultepec, in the city, and on the Capitol." 
Six non-commissioned officers and privates were selected from the Rifle regiment to 
bear this flag at the head of the storming column. 

The storming party from this division (commanded by Captain Casey, Second In- 
fantry) reported to General Scott, at Tacubaya, before sundown, and was assigned 
to tiie command of General Quitman ; and from that time, until the flag was raised 
upon the Capitol, it was under his control, and all the movements of the storming 
party carrying it were under his eye and direction. 

This storming party stormed and carried the strong five-gun battery commanding 
the Tacubaya road at the base of the hill in the rear of Chepultepec, and this Jiag 
was the first planted on that battery. It was also the first fag planted on the strong 
battery midway on the road between Chepultepec and the Garita of Belen, which 
was stormed and carried by the Rifle regiment, supported by the South Carolina regi- 
ment. It was also i\\Q first flag planted on the Garita of Belen, which work was also 
stormed by the Rifle regiment, supported by General Smith's entire brigade, and 
General Quitman's entire division. The storming of these three batteries was 



422 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

directed by General Quitman in person, with the assistance and support of General 
Smith. 

The fighting of the 13th ended with the day ; and at daylight next morning, Gene- 
ral Quitman formed his division (General Smith's brigade in front), and entered the 
city. He took possession of the citadel ; and by his order, delivered to me through 
General Smith, this flag was raised above that mighty fortress. The division ad- 
vanced, led by Generals Quitman and Smith on foot, and took possession of the 
Capitol, when this flag, by the order of General Quitman, delivered to me by a staff- 
oflScer, was raised, displaying the first American banner above the National Palace 
of Mexico. This is the entire history of the flag. I understood it to be the property 
of General Twiggs, and at his request returned it to him with my written report. It 
was borne in these actions by troops of his division, detached from his immediate 
command, and placed under the orders of General Quitman. 

li this flag is to become of any historical interest, its history should be truly told; 
and if any merit is supposed to attach to the fortune or accident of raising the first 
flag upon the Capitol of Mexico, it is just to General Quitman, to have it known it 
was done by troops he commanded in person and under his orders. 

I am, sir, very truly yours, 

B. S. KoBERTS, Captain Rifles. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President: If that had been the report which it 
was proposed to print bj order of Congress, and to transcribe on parch- 
raent and file in the State Department, as containing the true history 
of this flag, there would probably have been no controversy about it. 
Here Cnptain Roberts again repeats that it was the first flag planted at 
three different points, but he admits himself not to have been at two of 
them. He omits to mention how he came into possession of the know- 
ledge of those facts, but they are yet of sufficient consequence to have 
given rise to controversy, and there is difi"erence of opinion as to whether 
it was the first flag planted on these points. To that matter I beg to 
call the attention of the committee, when they shall take this subject 
into consideration. I desire that the letter which has just been read 
by the secretary, at my request, shall go to the committee, and shall 
be considered by them in connection with this subject. 

With these remarks, I am willing to let the subject go to the commit- 
tee. If credit is due to General Quitman, I want him to have it. If 
it is not due to him, I know he would scorn to take it. And now, it is 
but just to him, to say that, though he is a member of the House of 
Representatives, I have not made these remarks at his request, nor by 
his solicitation, nor even with his knowledge ; but his reputation belongs 
to the state of Mississippi, and, as one of her senators here, I have felt 
bound to protect it. 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 423 



OUE EELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 

SPEECH OF HON. A. G. BKOWN, OF MISSISSIPPI, IN THE SENATE, 

TMAIICH 11, 1856. 

The Senate having under consideration the three million bill, Mr. Brown said: — 

Mr. President : As the Senate is probably aware, it is not my pur- 
pose to address it especially on the provisions of this bill. Heretofore 
I have forborne to take any part in the debates which have taken place 
in the Senate in reference to our diflBculties with Great Britain. I have 
pursued this course because, among other reasons, I thought it best to 
wait until the whole correspondence was before us, that I might have an 
opportunity of examining it, and speaking intelligently in reference to 
it, when I spoke at all. I wish now to advert very briefly to the two 
points of difference between this government and that of Great Britain : 
first, in reference to the construction of the Clayton and Bulwer treaty ; 
and, secondly, and perhaps more at length, in reference to the enlistment 
question. 

In this whole controversy, from the beginning down to the present 
time, I think our own government has been right ; but I have no war 
speech to make in reference to the matters of difference. I shall be 
most happy, as an American citizen, and as a representative of one "of 
the states of this Union, if these difficulties can be adjusted without a 
resort to arms. While I shall speak plainly, and call things by their 
right names, I mean to utter no expression designed to excite a war 
spirit in the country. 

I must confess, sir, that I have been unable to understand how it is, 
or why it is, that so much difficulty has been found in reaching a proper 
conclusion as to what is the true construction of the now somewhnt cele- 
brated treaty, commonly called the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. It has 
seemed to me from the beginning, as it does now, that the language is 
susceptible of but one construction. I do not know how I shall proceed 
to demonstrate that which is already so clear that no language can make 
it plainer. In the first article it is stipulated, that " neither will ever 
erect or maintain any fortifications commanding the same" — that is, the 
canal — " or in the vicinity thereof, OR OCCUPY, or fortify, or colonize, OR 
ASSUME, OR EXERCISE ANY dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the 
Mosquito coast, o?' an,]/ part of Central America." 

When a party is obliged not to occupy, and not to exercise any do- 
minion over a particular country, the ordinary, plain, common sense of 
man would conclude that he could not remain in that country — that, 
being there, he must withdraw, because if he remains in the country he 
must necessarily occupy the country, and if he occupies it he must neces- 
sarily exercise authority over it. I know, sir, that before this treaty 
was ratified, the British negotiator addressed a note to the American 
Secretary of State, in which he said : — 

" In proceeding to the exchange of the ratifications of the convention signed at 
Washington on the 19th of April, 1850, between her Britannic Majesty and the 



424 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

United States of America, relative to the establishment of a communioation by ship 
canal between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the undersigned, her Britannic Ma- 
jesty's Plenipotentiary, has received her Majesty's instructions to declare that her 
Majesty does not understand the engagements of that convention to apply to her 
Majesty's settlement at Honduras, or to its dependencies. Her Majesty's ratification 
of the said convention is exchanged under the explicit declaration above mentioned." 

It therefore appears that the only portion of the country, even in the 
vicinity of Central America, which, according to the declaration filed at 
the time by the British negotiator, "was not covered hy the treaty, was 
the British settlement at Honduras. The American Secretary and nego- 
tiator replied to that note as follows : — • 

"The language of the first article of the convention concluded on the 19th day of 
April last, between the United States and Great Britain, describing the country not 
to be occupied, &c., by either of the parties, was, as you know, twice approved by 
your government, and it was neither understood by them, nor by either of us [the 
negotiators], to include the British settlement in Honduras (commonly called British 
Honduras, as distinct from the State of Honduras)." 

Again : — 

" It was understood to apply to, and does include, all the Central American states 
of Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, with their just 
limits and proper dependencies." 

These notes were exchanged immediately preceding the exchange of 
ratifications, and of course after the treaty had been ratified by the 
Senate. It is, therefore, clear that it was understood on both sides by 
the contracting parties, at the time when the ratifications of the treaty 
were exchanged, that the state of Honduras, as contradistinguished from 
the settlement known as British Honduras, was covered by the treaty. 
It was understood that the whole of Central America, no matter by what 
name it was known, was covered by the treaty, and that both parties 
obliged themselves not to occupy and not to exercise dominion over any 
part of it. The British government undertook and maintained for a 
long time, or endeavored to maintain, that she had the right, notwith- 
standing these plain and stubborn facts, notwithstanding the plain and 
explicit language of the treaty, to occupy certain portions of the country 
which she herself admitted to be within the limits of Central America. 
This was her first claim, but being driven from this position, she subse- 
quently assumed a different ground. On the 10th of January, 1854, 
Mr. Buchanan informs Secretary Marcy that he had had a conversation 
with Lord Clarendon in reference to the points of difference between 
the two governments. After discussing a great number of questions, 
Mr. Buchanan says : — 

" After this we had a discursive and rambling conversation, embracing the lloatan 
and Belize questions, the Clayton and Bulwer treaty, and several other matters which 
I do not propose to detail. In the course of it he stated, distinctly, that this treaty 
was, ill their opinion, entirely prospective in its operation, and did not require them 
to abandon any of their possessions in Central America." 

Here, for the first time, the ground is taken that the treaty is pros- 
pective in its operation. The first ground, as I understand, is virtually 
abandoned, viz : that particular portions of territory are not covered by 
the general name of Central America ; but now, admitting those parts 
which the British occupy to be a portion of Central America, it is con- 
tended that the terms of the treaty are " prospective in their operation," 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 425 

and do not require them to abandon those parts which they then occu- 
pied. 

Now, sir, to the phiin, common-sense understanding of most men in 
private life, this would look very much like an attempt at fraud. Let 
me suppose, Mr. President, that you and I have a controversy as to the 
occupancy of a house which has five apartments, I being in the actual 
occupancy of one of them ; and we sign a written agreement that, from 
a particular date, neither of us will occupy that house or exercise au- 
thority over it. If I afterwards assert that I meant by this simply to 
be left in the possession of the fifth apartment, and that the first, second, 
third, and fourth were not included, in what position would I stand ? If 
I assumed such ground as that, and went before any intelligent jury in 
Christendom, and escaped with a very small portion of a reputation for 
honesty, I should esteem myself singularly fortunate. Such a construc- 
tion of such a contract would be so palpably an infraction of common 
sense, that honest men everywhere would declare that I was wilfully 
attempting to evade and to violate the agreement. Here, Great Britain 
admits that she did oblige herself not to occupy, or colonize, or exercise 
dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, or any part of Central 
America ; that is, she agreed that she would not occupy the first, second, 
third, or fourth apartment, or any other apartment in the house ; and if 
she means to execute her contract in good faith, she must do precisely 
what an honest man would do under like circumstances — not only refuse 
to occupy the apartments which were vacant before she made the con- 
tract, but vacate the one she then occupied. If the treaty found her in 
possession of any part of Central America, she is obliged to abandon it. 
Her stipulation is, that she will not occupy or exercise dominion over 
any part of Central America. She cannot remain, then, without violat- 
ing the contract. She cannot remain there Avithout occupying the 
country. She cannot maintain her position without exercising dominion. 
She must quit the country or violate the treaty. 

Suppose, Mr. President, that it shall turn out, in the future examina- 
tion of this question, that the British negotiator was informed that the 
words " not to occupy" in the treaty meant "not to take or keep pos- 
session" of the country; suppose it shall turn out, in the course of the 
investigation, that the American negotiator told Sir Henry Bulwer that 
when we said, "You shall not occupy the country," we meant "You 
shall not take or keep possession of the country;" suppose this fact is 
not only known to Sir Henry Bulwer, but to-day, and at all times here- 
tofore, has been known to Lord Clarendon and the whole British govern- 
ment. I am not going to assert that it is so ; but I am going to assert 
that I believe it is so, and I do not make that declaration lightly. I 
have what I conceive to be good evidence ; I do not speak by the au- 
thority of the American Secretary [Mr. Clayton], but I have what I 
conceive to be good authority for saying to the Senate and to my coun- 
trymen that the British negotiator was informed that we used the words 
" not to occupy" as synonymous with the expression "not to take or 
keep possession of the country." This being so, with what sort of pro- 
priety — with Avhat sort of plausibility does Lord Clarendon take the 
ground that the treaty is simply prospective in its operation ? If he was 
forewarned that he was not to take and not to keep possession of the 



426 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

country, he was forewarned that the treaty was not to be prospective, 
but that it was to be present and instantaneous in its operation. 

This branch of the subject has been so elaborately debated in the 
Senate that I do not feel disposed to pursue it at greater length. The 
light which the distinguished senator from Delaware [Mr. Clayton] 
always throws on every subject which he touches has been thrown over 
this question. He negotiated the treaty, and must be presumed to un- 
derstand what was meant by it better than any one else. He has given 
us the benefit of his experience and advice on this subject. His age, 
experience, and political advantages entitle his opinions to great weight; 
and we all know that he utterly repudiates the British construction of 
the treaty. 

Old senators, who were here and took part in the ratification of the 
treaty, have given us the benefits of their opinions as to what was meant 
by it. The distinguished senator from Vermont [Mr. Collamer], then 
a member of the Cabinet which advised the making and ratification of 
this treaty, has given us his opinion as to what was meant by it. No- 
where in our country has a single voice been raised to express a doubt 
' as to the rightfulness of our construction of the treaty. Whatever may 
be thought of it in England, in this country there is but one opinion ; 
whatever may be thought of it among diplomatists, the honest, fair- 
minded, common-sensed yeomanry of the country will have but one 
opinion — and that will be, that, when Great Britain agreed not to occupy 
or exercise dominion over the country, she meant, if there, to go away, 
and, if not there, to stay away. 

I do not like the temper or the spirit in which this negotiation has 
been conducted on the British side. There seems to me to have been 
one of two thino-s ; either a gross and inexcusable misunderstanding of 
the facts, or a light and trivial and almost contemptuous treatment of 
those facts. The impression left on my mind is, that Great Britain, 
having planted her foot in Central America, is determined, treaty or no 
treaty, not to Avithdraw it — to pursue the same policy there which has 
• marked her course in all ages and in all parts of the world. It is the 
boast of her statesmen that she never abandoned a foothold. I should 
be as reluctant as any other citizen to see this country involved in a 
war with any country, and more especially with England ; but if she 
take this position with us, I am free to say, for one, that I would meet 
, her on the ocean and on the land, and stand to her, man to man, until 
the question of her right thus to disregard her treaty obligation with us 
is settled. I say, I fear — I do not charge — that this is the disposition 
of the British cabinet. 

I am not, Mr. President, in the habit of paying much attention to 
what newspapers in this country, or in any other, may say of public 
men or public measures, further than as they state facts. 1 hold in my 
hand, however, a British paper, containing a paragraph of such extra- 
ordinary character, that I feel disposed to lay it before the Senate ; and 
those who shall think proper to read the remarks which I am now sub- 
mitting — not as containing the sentiment of the British cabinet, for that 
I do not charge — not as containing the sentiments of the British people, 
for that I do not know — but as certainly containing the sentiments of 
the editor of a widely- circulated British journal, and as reflecting, it 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 427 

may be fairly presumed, the sentiments of his readers, who, we are 
informed, are very numerous. 

Mr. Cass. What paper is it? - 

Mr. Brown. The London Telegraph. 

Mr. Cass. It has the largest circulation of any paper in England, 
it is said. ° 

Mr. Brown. My friend from Michigan says it has the heaviest cir- 
culation of any paper in England. I call the attention of southern 
senators to this article : — 

" We are afraid there is but one way to settle this dispute, and that is, at the point 
of the bayonet. _ The aggressive spirit of the people of the United States requires an 
humbhng, and it is for us to perform the task. England's mission is to complete the 
great work commenced by her in 1834, when she liberated her slaves. There are 
now over three million human beings held in cruel bondage in the United States ; 
fellow-creatures, who are prepared to go through fire and water, even to the very 
gates of death itself, to escape their republican task-masters ; mothers who destroy 
their children to save them from bondage ; fathers who would risk the funeral pyre, 
like the martyrs of old, to save their little ones from the ruflBan planter's lash ! And 
in that republican country men are burned in the public streets ; children torn from 
their mother's bosoms, and sold to vice and bondage ; and woman with white skins 
even lashed to death, or compelled to submit to the licentious behest of a brutal 
owner ! There the laws of God and of civilized man are despised, and fellow-beings 
are bound as brutes and sold as chattels. If, therefore, the United States government 
deny, and is resolved to question, the right of Great Britain to her Central American 
possessions, we, the people of the British Empire, are resolved to strike off the 
shackles from the feet of her three million slaves. And there are those amongst us 
who will sanctify such a glorious. cause ; the people of England will deny themselves 
every luxury to assist their country in a contest more sacred and more glorious than 
ever formed the watchword of the Crusaders of old, when combating the infidel hosts 
of a Saladin. If we have not a Richard Coeur-de-Lion, we have one name which will 
carry liberty to millions, and the emancipation, by 'force of arms,' of the slaves of 
the American states will be connected to the end of all time with that rallyino- word 
of freedom — Victoria." ° 

Mr. Butler. Will my friend from Mississippi allow me to interrupt 
him for a moment ? 

Mr. Brown. Certainly. 

Mr. Butler. I feel that it is an act of justice, in connection with 
the extract which my friend has read from the British print, atrocious 
as it is— and the very recital of its falsehoods makes my blood boil— to 
say that I have seen, in a newspaper of the United States, having, it is 
said, a more extensive circulation than any other, a statement scarcely 
less atrocious than the one which he has read from the English news- 
paper. I know of no part of the United States which would join more 
heartily in maintaining the honor of the common confederacy than the 
Southern States ; but, at the very time when war is threatened, I read, 
in a newspaper sent to me the other day — sent to me, perhaps, because 
it was feared that otherwise I would not read it — a statement that a war 
with Great Britain would have other results than those which have been 
contemplated in the maintenance of treaties ; and that one result would 
be that the Virginia capes, the Carolina shores, and all the southern 
coast would be open to the enemy's ships ; that there could not be found 
ten thousand fighting men among the eflFeminate owners of slaves ; but 
that fifty thousand well-armed, trained, and disciplined soldiers could 
be brought together in a short time to put down their masters, and thus 
effect the liberation of this class of people. 



428 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Now, sir, atrocious as is the sentiment of the paper from which my 
friend from Mississippi has read, I would not put in comparison with it 
one who claims the name of brother. I can meet an open enemy ; but 
in the case of one who claims the relation of brother, and utters such 
sentiments, I would rather see him burnt in a bonfire of his own papers 
than undertake to countenance him. I have no doubt that the English 
paper, in some measure, got its information from the paper to which I 
allude. My friend from Mississippi has indicated a spirit to maintain 
the honor of this country, and the South entertains as much of that 
spirit as any other portion of the Union ; and yet, at the very time when 
we are manifesting it, a newspaper from England is quoted, deriving, I 
have no doubt, its information from the newspaper to Avhicli I have 
alluded, which has one of the most extensive circulations in the United 
States. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President, my friend from South Carolina has 
anticipated most of the comment which I intend to ofi'er on this article. 
I know very well that articles written in this spirit have been published 
in American newspapers ; and when so published they can be meant for 
but one purpose, and that is the same which this English writer has in 
view — to stir up discord, and finally to break up this government. I 
called attention to the article for the purpose of showing that there was 
a certain portion — how numerous I have no means of knowing — of the 
British people who are actuated by the atrocious spirit manifested by 
this article. Be they few or many, their movements deserve watching. 
I must do the senator who handed me that paper [Mr. Foot] the justice 
to say that he attended it with this commentary : " However we may 
differ and wrangle among ourselves about slavery or anything else, if 
Great Britain dares to touch the humblest state in this Union, or the 
meanest right which belongs to an American citizen, you, sir, will find 
the North as ready to strike in vindication of the injury as any portion 
of the South." The sentiment was a proper one. It comes from a 
northern senator. If that is the spirit which actuates the whole northern 
people, I shall be ready to defy the British lion, and tell him that if he 
wishes to strike for what he chooses to call liberty in this country, let 
him strike at once — we are prepared for the blow. But I cannot and 
will not overlook the fact, that while the British press is thus threaten- 
ing us with terrible chastisement, the British cabinet have acknowledged 
their weakness by a mean attempt to recruit their Crimean armies in 
this country. 

I shall not, Mr. President, review that portion — that childish portion, 
as I conceive it to be — of the correspondence which relates to the sub- 
ject of arbitrating this difficulty. I believe that no serious proposition 
has ever been submitted from the British government for an arbitration. 
If any has been or shall be submitted, I trust that our government will 
promptly reject it — not for the reason assigned yesterday, hypotheti- 
cally, by the senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Hale], but for the 
reason that a great republic like ours can scarcely expect justice in a 
contest between us and England, where a crowned head is the umpire. 
I am not prepared to say that I should go for arbitration under any 
circumstances ; but the only umpire whom I would recognise or tolerate 
would be a board composed of eminent individuals, having no con- 
nection with government. I think the reply of Mr. Buchanan was 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 429 

eminently proper, when he said laughingly — he might have said it with 
great propriety earnestly — to the British minister : " You are fighting 
the only power in all Europe or in the world who would have the bold- 
ness and independence to decide this question justly." As to allowing 
a petty German prince — a mere stipendiary on the bounty or depend- « 
ency on the forbearance of Great Britain — to arbitrate a great question 
like this between her and us, I am most emphatically against it. It 
would be surrendering without a struggle a right with which we cannot 
part. 

Great Britain has thrown herself across our transit from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific. She cannot occupy or exercise dominion over any part 
of Central America with any advantage to herself or without serious 
injury to us. She has agreed not to take or keep possession of the 
country, and she must fulfil her contract. We make no child's bargains 
with anybody, and especially one affecting the national safety. 

I pass now, sir, to the remaining point of difference between the two 
governments. I take it up on the 21st of April, 1854, when Mr. Cramp- 
ton commenced the correspondence by notifying our Secretary of State 
that the British government would not issue letters of marque and re- 
prisal, and requesting the strict neutrality of this government in the 
pending war between the Allies and Russia. He said : — 

" Her Britannic Majesty's government entertains the confident hope that the United 
States government will receive with satisfaction the announcement of the resolutions 
thus taken in common by the two allied governments ; and that it will, in the spirit 
of just reciprocity, give orders that no privateer under Russian colors shall be equipped 
or victualled, or admitted with its prizes, in the ports of the United States ; and also, 
that the citizens of the United States shall rigorously abstain from taking part in 
armaments of this nature, or in any other measure opposed to the duties of a strict 
neutrality." 

On the 28th of April, 1854 — ^,just one week afterwards — Mr. Marcy 
replied, stating that he had submitted Mr. Crampton's communication 
to the President ; and added that he was directed by the President 

— " to express to her Majesty's government his satisfaction that the principle that 
free ships make free goods — which the United States have so long and so strenuously 
contended for as a neutral right, and in which some of the leading powers of Europe 
have concurred — is to have a qualified sanction by the practical observance of it in 
the present war by both Great Britain and France, two of the most powerful nations 
of Europe." 

In the same despatch, Mr. Marcy said : — 

" The undersigned is directed by the President to state to her Majesty's Minister 
to this government, that the United States, while claiming the full enjoyment of their 
rights as a neutral power, will observe the strictest neutrality towards each and all 
the belligerents. The laws of this country impose severe restrictions not only upon 
its own citizens, hut npori all persons Avho may be residents within any of the terri- 
tories of the United States, against equipping privateers, receiving commissions, or 
enlisting men therein, for the purpose of taking a part in any foreign war. It is not 
apprehended that there will be any attempt to violate the laws ; but should the just 
expectation of the President be disappointed, he will not fail in his duty to use all 
the power with which he is invested to enforce obedience to them." 

Now, sir, three things are made plain by this correspondence : First, 
that Mr. Crampton obtained the required pledge of unqualified neu- 
trality on our part ; second, that he was notified of the stringency of 
our laws, and therefore put on his guard ; and third, that he was told 



430 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the President would most unquestionably enforce those laws. Therefore, 
for the enforcement of the laws, he certainly has had no just ground of 
complaint. And he cannot, after the date of this letter, plead that he 
was not fully advertised as to what the law was. Nothing further oc- 
curred until the 9th of June, 1855, when Mr. Marcy wrote to Mr. 
Buchanan that it had come to the knowledge of this government that 
" a plan was on foot to enlist soldiers within the limits of the United 
States to serve in the British army, and that rendezvous for that pur- 
pose had been actually opened in some of our principal cities." 

It cannot escape the attention of the most casual observer, at this 
point, that the British government, the first to ask neutrality, was the 
first to violate her obligations. Mr. Marcy, in this despatch, says : — 

"When intimations were thrown out that the British consuls in this country were 
aiding and encouraging this scheme of enlistment within our limits, Mr. Crampton, 
her Britannic Majesty's Minister to this government, showed me the copy of a letter 
which he had addressed to one of them, disapproving of the proceeding, and dis- 
countenancing it as a violation of our laws." 

It was very proper, on the part of Mr. Crampton, to write a letter 
discountenancing these proceedings, and to give notice to the British 
consuls that they were in violation of our law ; but, sir, we shall pre- 
sently see how sincere Mr. Crampton was when he showed this letter to 
the American Secretary of State. It has been stated broadly out of 
doors, and more than intimated in-doors, that our Secretary of State 
was, in some manner, to blame, because he did not, at an earlier day, 
present the double point, as against the British government, of having 
not only violated our municipal laws, but also of having violated our 
territorial rights of sovereignty under the laws of nations. That Mr. 
Marcy did comprehend the whole case in all its bearings from the be- 
ginning is manifest by the same despatch from which I have already 
read ; for in it he said to Mr. Buchanan : — 

" Besides being a disregard of our sovereign rights as an independent nation, the 
procedure was a clear and manifest infringement of our laws, enacted for the express 
purpose of maintaining our neutral relations with other powers.'' 

Here, then, in the outset, the American Secretary of State, in the 
very first letter which he wrote on this subject, called attention to both 
points of the controversy, and put the violation of our territorial rights 
in the foreground, mentioning, in advance of the other complaint, that 
it was also a violation of our municipal laws. There is, therefore, no 
just ground to charge that the American Secretary did not raise the 
two points. If the British government was not promptly advised of the 
double ground of complaint, it was no fault of Secretary Marcy. He 
certainly saw and raised both points in the onset, and put it in the fore- 
ground as the most important of the two, the violation of our " sovereign 
rights as an independent nation." v 

On the 6th July, 1855, Mr. Buchanan wrote to Lord Clarendon, no- 
tifying him fully of what had been done, and informing him of the com- 
plicity of the British functionaries in this country with this business, 
and calling his attention to the second section of the neutrality act of 
1818. The language of that act is in these words : — 

" That if any person shall, within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States, 
3nlist or enter himself, or hire or retain another person to enlist or enter himself, or 
to go beyond the limits or Jurisdiction of the United States loith intent to he enlisted or 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 431 

entered in the service of any foreign prince, state, colony, district, or people, as a sol- 
dier, as a marine or seaman, on board of any vessel of war, letter of marque, or 
privateer, every person so offending shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, 
and shall be fined not exceeding one thousand dollars, and be imprisoned not exceed- 
ing three years," &c. 

Whatever might have been said before this, it would be shameless 
mendacity to contend that the British government were not fully ad- 
vised, from the date of this despatch, as to what was the municipal law 
of this country. If after this despatch any person was induced to go 
beyond the limits of the United States " with the intent of being enlisted" 
in her Majesty's service, it must have been known to be in violation of 
our law ; and those who did it, or made the attempt to do it, must have 
been aware that they violated, or attempted to violate, these laws. Not- 
withstanding this, on the 16th of July last, Lord Clarendon wrote to 
Mr, Buchanan expressing his regret, not that the laws of the United 
States had been violated, but " if the laws of the United States have 
been in any way violated," he says that "such infringement is against 
the positive instructions of her Majesty's government." Hear him : — 

"The undersigned, however, thinks it right to state to Mr. Buchanan that some 
months ago her Majesty's government were informed, from various sources, that in 
the British North American possessions, as well as in the United States, there were 
many subjects of the Queen w^ho, from sentiments of loyalty, and many foreigners 
who, from political feeling, were anxious to enter her Majesty's service, and to take 
part in the war." 

They were advised, he says, that many persons in the United States 
desired to take part in the war ; and if they devised a way by which such 
persons should leave the United States with the intention of enlisting in 
her Majesty's service, they knew that such device would be a violation of 
the spirit of our law ; and yet what did they do ? His lordship says : — 

" Her Majesty's government, desirous of availing themselves of the offers of these 
volunteers, adopted the measures necessary for making generally known that her 
Majesty's g.ivernment were ready to do so", and for receiving such persons as shoidd 
present tJieinselves at an appointed place in one of the British possessions. The right ' 
of her Majesty's government to act in this way was incontestable ; but at the same 
time they issued stringent injunctions to guard against any violation of the United 
States law of neutrality." 

This is, perhaps, the most extraordinary paper that ever emanated 
from a statesman of acknowledged ability. Recollect that Mr. Buchanan 
had, on the 6th of July, sent to Lord Clarendon a copy of our law, 
making it an offence for "any person" to retain another " to go beyond 
the United States with the intent to be enlisted in the service of any 
foreign State;" and yet on the 16th of the same month, his lordship 
unblushingly says that her Majesty's government was informed that 
"many persons in the United States," subjects of the Queen and others, 
were "desirous of taking part in the war;" and that her Majesty's 
government, being anxious to get their services, notified them of the 
fact, and " appointed a place for them to present themselves in one of 
the British possessions;" and he says, "the right of her Majesty's 
government to act in this way was incontestable." Mr. President, can 
his lordship be serious ? Does he really mean to take the ground that 
the British Queen has an "incontestable" right to violate our laws at 
her pleasure? If he does not mean that, his declaration is without 
meaning ; for, with a full knowledge of what the law is, he states a case 
palpably in the very teeth of the law, and then asserts that her Majesty's 



432 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

government had an incontestable right to act as they did. Her Majesty's 
government appointed a place for them to assemble. Were they to go 
for nothing ? Were they to go for the mere love of fighting ; or were 
they to go because they had been hired or retained ? 1 will not insult 
the common sense of mankind by arguing a proposition so plain as that 
these men were not expected to enlist without pay. If they went for 
pay, the laAV Avas violated, and Lord Clarendon knew it. 

But, sir, his lordship said that he issued " stringent instructions not 
to violate the law;" that is to say, his lordship told his servants to go 
upon his neighbor's premises, cut down and carry away his timber with- 
out leave and against his instructions, but to be very cautious not to 
commit trespass. Why, sir, in the very act of obeying the orders he must 
necessarily commit trespass. In the very act of obeying the orders of the 
British government, its agents were necessarily compelled to violate our 
laws. How could they establish, as they confessedly have done, a rendez- 
vous in Nova Scotia, or in Canada, for the express purpose of drawing 
recruits from this country, for the purpose of hiring men to go there, 
with the intention of enlisting in her Majesty's service, without violating 
the law — without violating that clause of our law which says, that if any 
man shall be hired or retained to leave the United States Avith the inten- 
tion of being enlisted, the person so hiring, &c., shall be guilty of a 
misdemeanor ? His lordship admits that many acts were done which 
were undoubted violations of the law, but he denies the authority of the 
persons Avho did these acts. I will use his own language : — 

" Her Majesty's Government do not deny that the acts and advertisements of these 
self-constituted and unauthorized agents were, iu many instances, undoubted viohi- 
tions of the law of the United States ; hut such persons had no authority ^YIlatever 
for their proceedings from any Britif^h agents, by all of whom they were promptly 
and unequivocally disavowed." 

We shall see, as we proceed, how much of this statement is according 
to the record. On Hertz's trial, it was shown that many of her Majesty's 
officers were not only cognisant of these acts and advertisements, but 
actually aided and abetted in them. Lord Clarendon calls them " un- 
authorized and self-constituted agents" in all they did. The truth will 
be clearly seen when I come to examine the evidence in Hertz's case, as 
I propose to do. 

His lordship, in the despatch from which I last read, next proceeds to 
vindicate Sir Gaspard Le Marchant, the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova 
Scotia, against all suspicion of intending to violate the laws of the United 
States, though he admits that he did issue a proclamation, which was 
subsequently posted in Philadelphia, and perhaps in other cities of the 
LTnion, with the view of raising recruits in this country. The attempt 
at this point to fasten the responsibility on unauthorized agents, and to 
work Sir Gaspard out of the difficulty, is, I think, to say the least of it, 
unmanly. But his eifort further along to shield himself and his Nova 
Scotia p'otege behind Judge Kane, the distinguished jurist who presided 
on the trial of Hertz, is almost childish. He says: — 

"With respect to the proclamation by the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, 
enclosed in Mr. Buchanan's note, the undersigned can assure Mr. Buchanan, with 
reference both to the character of Sir Gaspard Le Marchant and to the instructions 
he received, as well as to his correspondence on these instructions, that that officer 
is quite incapable of intentionally acting against the law of the United States ; and 
in proof that he did not in fact do so, the undersigned begs leave to refer Mr. 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 433 

Buchanan to the legal decision given on the particular point adverted to by Mr. 
Buchanan, by Judge Kane, on the 22d of May last, in the United States Circuit Court 
at Philadelphia. The judge says, '/ do not think that the payment of the passage from 
this country of a man ivho desires to enlist in a foreign port comes within the act.' 
[The neutrality act of 1818.] ' In the terms of the printed proclamation there is 
nothing conflicting vrith the laws of the United States. A person may go abroad, 
provided the enlistment be in a foreign place, not having accepted and exercised a 
commission. There is some evidence in Hertz's case that he did hire and retain, and, 
therefore, his case would have to be submitted to a jury. In Perkins's case there was 
testimony upon which a jury might convict. In Bucknell's case it appears that there 
was a conversation at which he was present, but there was no enlistment, or hiring, 
or retaining. The conversation related as to the practicability of persons going to 
Nova Scotia to enlist. If the rule I have laid down be correct, then the evidence does 
not connect him with the misdemeanor.' ' Mr. Bucknell is, therefore, discharged, 
and Messrs. Perkins and Hertz are remanded to take their trial.' " 

Hertz was held to trial, and was afterwards tried and convicted, and 
yet Lord Clarendon quotes Judge Kane as authority that Sir Gaspard 
Le Marchant did not in fact violate the law by procuring the enlistment 
of men in the United States through Hertz's agency; for it will be borne 
in mind that he was but the agent of the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova 
Scotia in all that he did. Lord Clarendon continues : — 

"As regards the proceedings of her Majesty's Government, the undersigned has 
the honor to inform Mr. Buchanan that Mr. Crampton was directed to issue strict 
orders to British consuls in the United States to be careful not to violate the law, 
and Mr. Crampton was enjoined, above all, to have no concealment from the Govern 
ment of the United States." 

" Not to violate the law !" And it is maintained that the law has not 
been violated ! And this in the face and teeth of the fact that one of 
the parties (Hertz) had been arrested, indicted, and convicted, and would 
have been punished but for a pardon. He was tried and convicted before 
the very judge whose authority is quoted to show that there had been no 
violation of the law ! Now let us see what were the actings and doings 
in this case. 

I hold in my hand a copy of the proceedings in Hertz's trial ; and, 
at the risk of being a little tedious, I must read some extracts from the 
testimony of the principal witness, Strobel, premising that he is shown 
throughout the whole proceeding to have been the companion and the 
guest, not only of Sir Gaspard Le Marchant, but of Sir Edmund Head, 
the Governor-General of Canada, and of Mr. Crampton himself. The 
intimacy, the daily association between the parties, exclude the idea 
that he was not a gentleman. The man who but a little while before 
was taken into the families of these distinguished British functionaries, 
feasted by them, wined by them, sheltered by them, and taken to their 
bosoms as a companion, is not to be shuffled off and " whistled down the 
wind" as an unworthy personage when he comes to tell the truth under 
the solemn obligations of an oath. All attempts, therefore, to discredit 
this witness must necessarily fall to the ground, at least until these gen- 
tlemen can show something that has transpired, after they were dining, 
wining, sheltering, and associating with Strobel. Previous to the time 
when he gave this testimony, he was a gentleman ; what has transpired 
since to invalidate his testimony ? Nothing. No attempt has been made 
to prove him unworthy of credit. What did he say ? After relating a 
great many other things, he said : — 

" A few days afterwards, I suppose, on the 28th of February, I received a letter 
from Mr. Crampton. 
28 



434 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

" Question. If? this the letter ? 

^^ Answer. Yes, sir. 

" Q. And this the envelope in which it was enclosed ? 

"A. Yes, sir. 

" The letter was here read in evidence, as follows : — 

" 'Washington, February 14, 1855. 
" ' Sir : With reference to our late conversation, I am now able to give you more 
precise information in regard to the subject to which it related. 

" ' I remain, sir, your obedient servant, 

" 'John F. Ckampton. 
" ' Mr. Max Strobel.' " 

"After receiving this letter, I went to see Mr. Cranipton next morning; Mr. 
Crampton told me that he had received letters from home, and that he was willing 
now to raise men here in the jurisdiction of the United States for a British foreign 
legion, which should be established either in Nova Scotia or in Canada. 

" Q. Did he use the words 'within the jurisdiction of the United States?' 

"J. Yes, within the jurisdiction of the United States. 

" Q. He used those precise words, did he? 

''A. Yes, sir ; but he was not sure at the time whether the main depot should be at 
Halifax or in Canada, and he was obliged to make arrangements with the Governor- 
General of Canada. At the very same time he gave me a letter of introduction to 
the British consul in New York, Mr. Barclay, in which he states, that I am already 
acquainted with the matter, and that Mr. Barclay might receive me and talk with 
me about this subject, and that I should make preparations in New York for getting 
men. lie told me at the very same time he would send a messenger to the Governor- 
General of Canada. I went to New York, and delivered my letter to Mr. Barclay. 

" Q. What was this messenger sent for ? 

"A. To arrange matters about a depot, or place where we could send these men 
whom we got here in the States." 

At another point of his testimony, I find this : — 

" Q. In consequence of what Dr. Biell told you, state what you did ? 

"J. I went to Hertz, and had a conversation with Hertz about this matter. 

" Q. Where was he ? 

"A. He was in his office. No. 68 South Third street, opposite the Exchange. I 
saw, then, Mr. Hertz, and from that time (nine o'clock, a. m.) I was with Mr. Hertz till 
three, p. m., where, in pursuance of the advertisements, men came and wrote their 
names down on a book, and agreed to enter the foreign legion at Halifax. 

" Q. Have you ever seen a bill like this ? 

"A. I have seen this hand-bill. 

" Q. Where ? 

"A. In Mr. Hertz's office. 

" The bill was here read in evidence. It reads as follows." 

The bill here alluded to is the proclamation of Sir Gaspard. 

Mark the language of this proclamation, and see if it does not bear 
on its face internal evidence that it was meant for circulation in the 
United States ? 

Men Wanted for Her Majesty's Service. 
(Arms of Great Britain, with mottoes.) 

Provincial Secretary's Office, 
Halifax, Nova Scotia, March 15, 1855. 
The Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia having been employed to embody a foreign 
legion, and to raise British regiments for service in the provinces or abroad, notice is 
hereby given, that all able-bodied men, between the ages of nineteen and forty, on 
applying at the depot at Halifax, will receive a bounty of £G sterling, equal to $30, 
and on being enrolled will receive $8 per month, with the clothing, quarters, and 
other advantages to which British soldiers are entitled. 

Preference will be given to men who have already seen service. 
The period of enlistment will be from three to five years, at the option of the Bri- 
tish Government. 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 435 

Officers who have served v?ill be eligible for commissions. Gentlemen who wish 
to come into the province will please lodge their names, rank, date of service, &c., 
at the oflSce. 

Persons who serve in the foreign legion will, ou the expiration of their term, be 
entitled to a free passage to America, or to the country of their birth. 

Pensions or gratuities for distinguished services in the field will be given. 

Nova Scotian and other shipmasters who may bring into this province poor men 
willing to serve her Majesty, will be entitled to receive the cost of a passage for each 
man shipped from Philadelphia, Neio York, or Boston. 

By command, 
Lewis M. Wilkins, Provincial Secretary. 

That is Sir Gaspard Le Marchant's proclamation, sent out from Nova 
Scotia, signed by the secretary of that province, posted up in the streets 
of Philadelphia, notifying those who should carry men from this coun- 
try that their passage-money would be paid by the British gavernment. 
Now, sir, can there be any doubt that it was intended by this procla- 
mation to draw men from the United States ? Then by what authority 
does Lord Clarendon pretend to assume that Sir Gaspard did not mean 
to violate the laws of the United States, if he issued a proclamation — 
and here is the paper — and had it sent to Philadelphia and other cities, 
and posted up, saying that the British government would pay the ex- 
pense of men from New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, to Halifax ? 
Was it not done with the intention and expectation of drawing men from 
these points ? If he intended to get men in New York, Boston, and 
Philadelphia, did he not mean to violate that provision of our law which 
forbids men being hired or retained to leave this country with the inten- 
tion of enlisting in the service of a foreign state ? It seems to me that 
the proof on this point is conclusive ; but still the agents were told not 
to violate the law ! That assertion presents itself through the whole of 
the correspondence. Every time the British government is brought to 
a sharp corner in this correspondence, you may feel sure that, as soon 
as you turn round, you will see it written, "Do not violate the law !" 
but at the time the government were telling their agents not to violate 
the law, they were giving them instructions which they knew could not 
be obeyed without violating the law. 

Mr. Hale. Will the senator allow me to interrupt him at this point? 

Mr. Brown. Certainly. 

Mr. Hale, I think the senator is arguing this case under a misap- 
prehension, and I wish to put him right. I desire to ask him whether 
he understands it to be against the law to leave the United States with 
the intention of enlisting in any foreign service ? 

Mr. Brown. I do. The law says, in express terms, just what I have 
stated. 

Mr, Hale, I think the senator will find himself exceedingly mistaken 
in that respect. 

Mr. Brown. I have read the law ; and if I am mistaken about it, I 
am willing that anybody shall detect the error. 

Mr. Hale. I think the senator will find the law to be this : That it 
is criminal for any man to procure a person to go abroad with the inten- 
tion of enlisting ; but if a citizen of this country wishes to go to Halifax, 
or anywhere else, and enlist in a foreign service, it is no crime for him 
to do it. He may do it, and there is no crime in declaring his intention 
to do it. I think I am not mistaken in this. It is unlawful for some- 
body else to procure him to do it; but anybody in the United States has 
a right to go if he chooses, and to go armed if he wishes to do so. 



436 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Mr. Brown. The senator and I do not understand the law precisely 
alike. I have read it verbatim^ and the Senate will judge whether my 
comments are sustained by the text. 

Now, sir, let us proceed further. At another point in Strobel's testi- 
mony I find this : — 

" Q. (Paper shown). Will yoii look at that paper, and state what it is? 

"A. It is the instructions I received at Quebec, in Sir Edmund Head's house, out 
of Mr. Crampton's own hands. The original was written in Mr. Crampton's own 
handwriting, and was written, at least part of it, in my presence, in his room. This 
is a copy made from the original ; I made it for the purpose of preserving a copj. 
The original I gave back in a report I made to Sir Gaspard Le Marchant, in 
Halifax. That report stated what I had done to clear me of two charges made against 
iiie up there. 

" Q. That, then, is a copy made from the original instructions of Crampton, as to 
your duty in the United States ? 

"A. That is a copy of the original instructions I received at this time from Mr. 
Crampton. 

" The paper was being read as part of the evidence, when, on motion, a recess was 
taken for ten minutes. On the court reassembling, the reading of the paper was 
concluded. It is as follows : — 

" ' Memorandum for the guidance of those who are to make known to persons in 
the United States the terms and conditions upon which recruits will be received into 
the British army : — 

" ' 1. The parties who may go to Bitjfalo, Detroit, or Cleveland, for this purpose, 
must clearly understand that they must carefully refrain from anything which would 
constitute a violation of the law of the United States.' " 

Very careful, Mr. Crampton ! For what purpose did he send them 
to BuflFalo, and Detroit, and Cleveland ? If they were sent there for 
any purpose, it was to get men to fill up the British foreign legion, and 
how could they do it without violating the law ? Let us go further, and 
see how cautious Mr. Crampton was : — 

" ' 2. They must, therefore, avoid any act which might bear the appearance of re- 
cruiting within the jurisdiction of the United States for a foreign service, or of hiring 
or retaining anybody to leave that jurisdiction with the intent to enlist in the service 
of a foreign power. [Both these acts are illegal by the act of Congress of 1818, 
sec. 2.] 

" '4. There must be no collection, embodiment of men, or organization whatever, 
attempted within that jurisdiction. 

" ' 5. No promises or contracts, written or verbal, on the subject of enlistment, 
must be entered into with any person within that jurisdiction. 

" ' 6. The information to be given will be simply, that to those desiring to enlist in 
the British army, facilities will be afforded for so doing on their crossing the line into 
British territory, and the terms offered by the British Government may be stated as 
a matter of information only, and not as implying any promise or engagement on the 
part of those supplying such information, so long, at least, as they remain within 
American jurisdiction.' " 

That is to say, they were to be told how much they would get if they 
would go ; but there was no absolute engagement, because that might 
possibly break the law ! See again how cautious he is. What a cunning 
old fox is Mr. Crampton ! Let us examine his instructions further : — 



11 1 ' 



• 7. It is essential to success that no assemblages of persons should take plape at 
beer-houses, or other similar places of entertainment, for the purpose of devising 
measures /or enlisting ; and the parties should scrupulously avoid resorting to this or 
similar means of disseminating the desired information, inasmuch as the attention of 
the American authorities would not fail to be called to such proceedings, which would 
undoubtedly be regarded by them as an attempt to carry on recruiting for a foreign 
power within the limits of the United States ; and it certainly must be borne in mind 
that the institution of legal proceedings against any of the parties in question, even 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 437 

if they were to elude the penalty, would be fatal to (he success of the enlistment 
itself' " 

Ah ! had he not been told to have no concealment from the United 
States ; and does not Lord Clarendon make it a matter of boast that Mr. 
Crampton had been told above all things to have no concealment from 
the United States? Yet here is a paper, drawn by his own hand, in 
which he tells his men not to do particular things, because they could 
not fail to attract the attention of the American authorities. _ If these 
things were lawful, why need he care if the American authorities did see 
them? If he was doing no wrong — if he was violating no law-— if he 
was conscious of the perfect propriety of his conduct, why this violation 
of his instructions to have no concealment from the United States ? 

The amount of the instructions is, that they must not go into beer- 
houses, they must not talk about the matter at the street corners, they 
must not assemble in large squads, for this would attract the attention 
of the American authorities, and " be fatal to the success of the enlist- 
ment itself." Sir, do not forget that we are told Mr. Crampton was 
acting under instructions to have no concealment from this government. 
Another point of these memoranda of Mr. Crampton to the recruiting 
agents is : — 

" ' 8. Should the strict observance of these points be neglected, and the parties 
thereby involve themselves in difi&culty, they are hereby strictly apprised that they 
must expect no sort of aid or assistance from the British Government ; this Govern- 
ment would be compelled by the clearest dictates of international duty to disavow 
their proceedings, and would moreover be absolved from all engagements contingent 
upon the success of the parties in obtaining, by legal means, soldiers for her Britannic 
Majesty's army.' " 

I need not comment on this strange paragraph ; it plainly says, Go 
and violate the laws of the United States : be cunning, look out for 
yourselves ; if you get into difficulties, the proud and haughty govern- 
ment whose dirty work you are doing will disown you. 

I proceed with the testimony. A paper is shown the witness, and he 
is asked : — 

" Q. In whose handwriting is that paper ? 

"A. At that very time I also received this cipher, to telegraph with to Mr. Cramp- 
ton and to Halifax, about this recruiting business ; I cannot swear as to whose hand- 
writing it is in, but I believe it is Mr. Crampton's ; I did not see him write it, but he 
handed it to me. 

" The paper was here given in evidence ; the following is a copy : — 



Letter. 


Cipher. 


Letter. 


Cipher 


a 


y 


n 


q 


b 


V 





n 


c 


j 


P 


c 


d 


1 


q 


h 


e 


z 


r 


o 


f 


e 


8 


) 


g 


z 


t 


i. 


h 


u 


U 


g 


i 


b 


V 


d 


• 

J 


w 


w 


m 


k 


t 


z 


r 


1 


a 


y 


i 


m 


s 


z 


f 



' Q. You were to telegraph him by this cipher, instead of the usual way ? 
'A. Yes, sir. 



438 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

" Q. What was the object in giving you this cipher ? 

"A. Such ciphers were given to several officers — to Mr. Smolenski, Mr. Cartensen ; 
and men actually engaged in the recruiting business received those ciphers. 

" Q. Was it for the purpose of avoiding detection ? 

"A. It was for the purpose of avoiding detection, and avoiding any difiSculties 
with the authorities here. It was to enable me to telegraph to Mr. Crampton from 
every place I might visit, without the people in the telegraph offices understand- 
ing it. 

" Q. Were all the officers sent on this recruiting to telegraph to Mr. Crampton as 
to their proceedings, and was that cipher to be used ? 

"A. Yes, sir." 

Here follows a long list of dinner invitations from Sir Gaspard and 
Lady Le Marchant, and other British officers of high rank ; important 
only as showing that Strobel was on terms of social intimacy with these 
gentlemen, and is, therefore, unimpeached, and, so far as we know, 
unimpeachable. 

For what purpose did Mr. Crampton want a cipher ? Why should he 
resort to these cabalistic characters, which only he and the initiated 
could understand ? Was that to carry out his instructions, to have no 
concealment from the government of the United States ? Was he deal- 
ing openly and fairly with the government, when he supplied his agents 
with a cipher which none but he and they understood ? For what pur- 
pose was the cipher given ? The witness tells us, " it was for the pur- 
pose of avoiding detection, and avoiding any difficulties with the 
authorities here." A cipher was resorted to for the purpose of tele- 
graphic communications, the object being to avoid detection ; and yet he 
is violating no law — he is keeping nothing concealed from the govern- 
ment of the United States ! And yet Lord Clarendon defends and 
justifies Mr. Crampton's conduct, and stoutly maintains, as we shall 
presently see, that he has done no wrong, violated no law, and disobeyed 
no instructions. 

Now, before I pass from this branch of the subject, I desire to call 
attention to the charge of Judge Kane, delivered on the trial of Hertz. 
It is important in many points of view, but it is especially important, as 
Judge Kane is brought into this case by Lord Clarendon himself, as the 
very judge who had correctly expounded the law. I read this opinion 
because it is from the man on whom his lordship relies for correct 
opinions. Judge Kane says : — 

" Our people and our government have been accused of forgetting the obligations 
of neutrality, and pushing ourselves forward into the conflicts of foreign nations, 
instead of minding our own business as neutrals, and leaving belligerents to fight out 
their own quarrels. For one, I confess that I felt surprised, as tliis case advanced, 
to learn, that during the very time that these accusations were fulminated against the 
American people by the press of Enghind, there was, on the part of eminent British 
fund ionaries here, a series of arrangements in progress, carefully digested, and com- 
bining all sorts of people, under almost all sorts of influences, to evade the laivs of the 
United States by which our country sought to enforce its neutrality — arrangements 
matured, upon a careful inspection of the different sections of our statutes, ingeni- 
ously to viulate their spirit and principle without incurring their penalty, and thus 
enlist and send away soldiers from our neutral shores to fight the battles of those 
who were incontinently and not over courteously admonishing us to fulfil the duties 
of neutrality." 

If it were important, I could show, by the speeches delivered in the 
British Parliament itself, that we are not alone in our construction of 
our own law, and that we are not alone in the charge which we make 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 489 

against Mr. Crarapton, of having violated the law, and having done it 
knowingly. These things were charged on the 13th of last month in the 
British House of Commons, by Mr. Roebuck, by Mr. Gibson, and by 
others. Mr. Roebuck, on that occasion, said: — 

" We have been led to suppose that we have right on our side, and that our cousinp 
on the other side of the water, taking- advantage of our position, were, nevertheless, 
endeavoring to force us to make a sort of supplication to them for peace. Now, what 
is the state of the case ? It is this : After the Parliament of Great Britain had passed 
an act for the enlistment of foreigners, the Government determined, under the provi- 
sions of that act, to enlist people in America. Being unable to intercept the emigra- 
tion flowing from Germany to America, they went to America, and they gave instruc- 
tions to our authorities there to form a foreign legion, to be composed of persons 
enlisted in America. 

" One of the persons employed on that occasion was our Minister at Washington, 
(Mr. Crampton ;) another was the Governor of Nova Scotia; and a third was the 
Governor-General of Canada. The noble lord said that, as soon as Government dis- 
covered that umbrage had been given to the United States by the course they had 
taken, he gave instructions to our ministers and agents not to trench in any way upon 
the municipal laws of America, and at the same time sent a full apology to the 
American Government. He then appealed to the House, and asked, could he do 
anything more? 

" If the noble lord had only done what he stated, I should have answered his 
appeal by saying that nothing more could be done. But Government did more, and 
what they did I will now state. Mr. Crampton went from Washington to Nova 
Scotia, and there entered into a sort of combination with the Governor, and laid a 
plan by which the laws of the United States might be contravened, in order to obtain 
surreptitiously that which could not be obtained by other means. I will prove 
directly all that I assert out of Mr. Crampton's own mouth, or rather out of his own 
pen, but I ought first to state the law of America upon the subject of enlistment ; 
and the House will then see that it is in accordance with the opinion and feeling of 
the country. 

" In the first place, it is illegal to enlist anybody in the United States for the service 
of a foreign state. The Government are not, however, charged with that offence, but 
with something more. Any person going to the United States, and inducing people 
to leave those states for the purpose of being enlisted abroad, also acts in contraven- 
tion of the law ; and this is part of the law which Mr. Crampton is accused of having 
broken through. He went to Nova Scotia ; he there engaged persons going to the 
states to enlist people — that is, to induce them to go to Nova Scotia to be enlisted. 
Now, the very act of inducing people to leave the United States for the purpose of 
being enlisted is a violation of the law, being a contravention of that neutrality to 
which the Americans wish to adhere. 

" Mr. Crampton thought he could do this without being discovered by the authori- 
ties of the United States. They did, however, discover what was taking place, and, 
in consequence of that discovery, Mr. Crampton issued a proclamation from Nova 
Scotia, suggesting a means of evading the law of the United States, and giving the 

farties whom he employed a cipher by which they might communicate with him. 
low do I prove this statement ? Why, I hold in my hand a document curious in 
many ways. It is a report of a trial that took place in Pennsylvania, in which one 
Henry Hertz was the defendant, being charged by the United States Government 
with certain breaches of the law set forth in the indictment. One peculiarity of the 
indictment is, that it is intelligible." [A laugh.] 

Such is the authority of the leading commoner (Mr. Roebuck). Other 
members spoke to the same effect. 

But let us return to the despatch of the 16th of July. In this dis- 
patch the Earl of Clarendon assures Mr. Buchanan of the cordial good- 
will of the British government towards the United States. I wish to 
be just, I wish to deal fairly with these parties, and therefore state that 
this despatch does express a cordial good-will on the part of the British 
government towards the United States. If the sincerity of these assur- 
ances had been attested by the conduct of the British functionaries in 



440 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the United States, there would have been no further difficulty after the 
date of this despatch ; but that they were not so attested, and that they 
* were not in fact sincere, is abundantly proven at every step as we ad- 
vance in the investigation of the case. 

On the 18th of July, Mr. Buchanan acknowledged the receipt of 
Lord Clarendon's note of the 16th, and assured him of "the satisfaction 
he would have in transmitting a copy of it to the Secretary of State by 
the next steamer." This note is that which has so conspicuously figured 
ever since as an accepted apology and satisfaction for all that has been 
done. It is not an apology, and was not so accepted. It fell short of 
this point. If, however, it had been written in good faith, and its senti- 
ments faithfully carried out in the subsequent negotiations, it would 
have led to a satisfactory conclusion. It may well be doubted whether 
the assurances contained in this note were given in good faith. It is 
perfectly certain that they were not faithfully carried out. 

[In consequence of temporary indisposition, Mr. Brown was unable 
to proceed further on Tuesday ; to-day (March 13) he concluded his 
speech as follows :] — 

On the 5th of September, when the evidence had so accumulated as 
to force conviction on the reluctant mind of Mr. Marcy, that the min- 
ister (Mr. Crampton), and many others high in British confidence, had 
taken active and efficient parts in the business of recruiting for her 
Majesty's army, he departed from the beaten track of diplomacy, and 
addressed himself directly to the British envoy. In that letter he 
says : — 

" The information which has been laid before the President has convinced him 
that the pi'oceedings resorted to for the purpose of drawing recruits y?-o»j this country 
for the British army, have been instigated and carried on by the active agency of 
British officers, and that their participation therein has involved them in the double 
offence of infringing our laios, and violating our sovereign territorial rights." 

This was an open and direct accusation based on testimony. It 
accuses British officers of the double offence of infringing our laws, and 
violating our sovereign territorial rights. 

Nor does the Secretary leave it in doubt as to who are the offending 
parties. He says to Mr. Crampton : — 

" The President perceives with much regret that the disclosures implicate you in 
these proceedings." * * * " "phe information in his possession does not allow 
him to doubt that yourself, as well as the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, and 
several civil and military officers of the British government of rank in the provinces, 
were instrumental in setting on foot this scheme of enlistment ; have offered induce- 
ments to agents to embark in it, and approved of the arrangements for carrying it 
out, which embraced various recruiting establishments in different cities of the United 
States." 

Here is a direct and specific charge made against Mr. Crampton, that 
he was implicated in these transactions, and that, in the judgment of 
our government, they were flagrant outrages on our law, and direct 
insults offered to our sovereignty. How does Mr. Crampton meet this 
grave and direct charge ? Does he come forward with a bold and 
manly denial? Does he exhibit that calm resentment which conscious 
innocence always shows ? No, sir, no ; but two days after, on the 7th 
of September, he addresses a brief note to Mr. Marcy — not to deny 
the charge, not to resent an unjust imputation, not to palliate an 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 441 

acknowledged wrong ; oh, no ! not for any of these purposes ; but to 
inform Mr. Marcy that — 

"I have thouf!;ht it expedient to defer replying at length to your present commu- 
nication, until I shall have been more fully put into possession of the views of her 
Majesty's government, in regard to all the matters to which it relates." 

" The views of her Majesty's government!" If he had, to use Lord 
Clarendon's own words, "stringent instructions not to violate our 
laws, or territorial rights," and was conscious of having obeyed those 
instructions — if, as his lordship has undertaken to prove for him, he had 
violated no law — why did he not say so ? What need was there, in that 
case, for the views of her Majesty's government. 

I suspect that Mr. Crampton's despatch to Lord Clarendon, calling 
for "the views of her Majesty's government," runs after something after 
this fashion : " I have been trying to obey your lordship's order ; I have 
been trying to evade the laws of the United States — violating them 
while I seemed to respect them ; I have got myself in a scrape ; the 
Yankees have caught me ; old Marcy has me fairly treed ; and I will 
thank your lordship to tell me what I am to do." 

Well, sir, the next thing we have in arrogance and insolence, after 
the true John Bull style : — 

" The undersigned, her Britannic Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs, has the honor to address a note to'Mr. Buchanan, Envoy Extraordinary and 
Minister Plenipotentiary to her Majesty's Court." 

Such is the pompous prelude to a note bearing date September 27. 
1855. ^ 

In this note Lord Clarendon adverts to Mr. Marcy's charge that our 
sovereign territorial rights had been violated by British officers, and 
coolly says : — 

" Her Majesty's government have no reason to believe that such has been the con- 
duct of any persons in the employment of her Majesty." 

And again : — 

" Her Majesty's government feel confident that even the extraordinary measures 
which have been adopted in various parts of the Union to obtain evidence against 
her Majesty's servants, or their agents, by practices sometimes resorted to under 
despotic institutions, but which are disdained by all free and enlightened govern- 
ments, will fail to establish any well founded charge against her Majesty's servants." 

The plain English of this is, that our President and Secretary of 
State do not understand who they are talking about. Her Majesty's 
servants are above suspicion. Though a republican court has resorted 
to despotic means for the purpose of fastening charges against them, 
they have passed the fiery ordeal unscathed — the charge rebounds and 
knocks the accuser over. 

I confess, Mr. President, that this language stirs my American blood. 
When a British Secretary so far forgets the proprieties of his position 
and the respect due to our country as to charge that our government 
has been " resorting to extraordinary and despotic measures, such as are 
discarded in free and enlightened countries, for the purpose of obtain- 
ing evidence against her Majesty's servants," I am not willing to stop 
with Mr. Buchanan, and say "the language is oflFensive;" I go further, ' 
and say it is insolent, and ought to be resented. 

Lord Clarendon, instead of excusing the conduct of Mr. Crampton 
and his confederates, or tendering an apology for their violation of the 



442 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

" stringent instructions " given them by her Majesty's government, or 
in some other way offering reparation for the wrong done to our laws 
and sovereignty, proceeds to arraign the United States on charges of 
duplicity and bad faith. He says : — 

" The United States profess neutrality in the present war between the western 
powers and Russia ; but have no acts been done within the United States, by citizens 
thereof, which accord little with the spirit of neutrality ? Have not arms and ammu- 
nition, and warlike stores of various kinds been sent in large quantities from the 
United States for the service of Russia? Have not plots been openly avowed, and 
conspiracies entered into without disguise or hindrance in various parts of the Union, 
to take advantage of the war in which Great Britain ?" &c. 

These and other insinuations are freely indulged in. " Have not 
arms and ammunition and warlike stores of various kinds," asks his lord- 
ship, " been sent in large quantities from the United States for the 
service of Russia?" Yes, sir, doubtless this is true. Our people sell 
wherever they can find a customer ; and I daresay, if England had 
needed " arms and ammunition and warlike stores" our merchants would 
have supplied her as readily as they supplied Russia. 

How many thousand barrels of pork, flour, and beans have England 
and France bought in the United States for the use of their armies ?— 
and yet Russia has not complained. These articles are not arms or 
ammunition, but they are stores just as essential to the success of an army 
as powder and ball. How many of our ships have the allies chartered 
to transport their armies and their warlike stores? — and yet Russia has 
never charged us with bad faith or double-dealing. This is a complaint 
based on nothing, and is dictated by no sense of national wrong. It 
results from a fretful spirit, lashed to anger because excuses cannot be 
found to justify that which is not justifiable. That, I think, is the 
whole story on this point of the controversy. Men are very apt to lose 
their temper when in discussion they are driven to the wall ; and when 
Lord Clarendon could no longer answer the statesman-like notes of 
Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Marcy, he lost his temper and became childish — 
in fact, almost womanish. 

There are other parts of this letter that are highly offensive, but I 
pass them by without notice. 

On the 18th of October, 1855, Secretary Marcy replied to this extra- 
ordinary note of Lord Clarendon through Mr. Buchanan. The letter 
is a frank and manly review of his lordship's carping and — I had almost 
said silly — complaints against our government. After effectually disposing 
of every point, and dissipating every argument produced by the British 
Secretary, Mr. Marcy concludes by saying that : 

" Supported as this government is in the charge made against British oflBcers and 
agents, of having infringed our laws and violated our sovereign territorial rights, 
and being able to sustain that charge by competent proof , the President would fail in 
due respect for the national character of the United States, and in his duty to main- 
tain it, if he did not decline to accept, as a satisfaction for the wrongs complained of, 
Lord Clarendon's assurance that these officials were enjoined a strict observance of 
our laws, and tlrnt he does not believe that any of them have disregarded the injunction. 

" This government believes, and has abundant proof to warrant its belief that her 
Britannic Majesty's ofiBcers and agents have transgressed our laws and disregarded 
our rights, and that its solemn duty requires that it should vindicate bothby insist- 
ing upon a proper satisfaction. The President indulges the hope that this demand 
for redress will be deemed reasonable, and will be acceded to by her Britannic Ma- 
jesty's government." 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 443 

Our government — very properly, I think — declined to receive an 
apology for an offence committed by a servant, when the master takes 
it upon himself to say, "Notwithstanding your declaration that you 
have the proof, I do not believe a word of it." 

" This government has indicated the satisfaction which it believes it has a right 
to claim from the British government in my despatch to you of the 15th of July last." 

In the despatch of the 15th of July, Mr. Marcy informs Mr. Buchanan 
that notwithstanding Lord Clarendon's assurances, given in his note of 
the 12th of April, 1855, " the scheme" of enlistment is not abandoned, 
" but is continued down to this time, and is prosecuted with more vigor 
and effect than at any previous period." He adds : — 

" Since that time many months have elapsed, and the British officers, with a full 
knowledge of the illegality of the procedure and of its offensive character to the 
government and people of the United States, as an open contempt of their sovereign 
rights, persist in carrying on this obnoxious scheme without any open disapproval 
by the Home Government, or any attempt to arrest it." 

These are important facts in the consideration of this question. At 
the date of this despatch, it will be perceived, Mr. Marcy was still com- 
plaining that notwithstanding our remonstrances, the offensive conduct 
of the British agents was yet carried on in open contempt of our laws 
and of our sovereign territorial rights. He directly charges that no 
effort had been made by the British government to arrest it. Was I 
not right when I expressed some doubts as to whether Lord Clarendon's 
note of July 16 was dictated in a spirit of true friendship ? If it was, 
how does it happen that months afterwards this offensive conduct had 
not been arrested ? 

The satisfaction which was claimed in Mr. Marcy 's note of the 15th 
of July, and which is referred to in his other note of October 18th, 
may be gathered from the note itself. It says : — 

" It was reasonably expected that her Britannic Majesty's government would have 
considered it due to the friendly relations between the two countries, not merely to 
reprove its officers engaged in this scheme of raising recruits within our jurisdiction, 
but promptly to retrace the steps which had been taken, and at once to arrest the 
illegal proceedings ; but this government is not aware that any such course has been 
taken ; on the contrary, it has reason to believe that the machinery first put in opera- 
tion is still at work, and is still managed by British functionaries." 



* * * * 



" As recruiting for the British army, in the mode alluded to, is still prosecuted in 
the United States by officers and agents employed for that purpose, the President 
instructs you to say to her Majesty's government, that he expects it will take prompt 
and effective measures to arrest their proceedings, and to discharge from service 
those persons now in it who were enlisted within the United States, or who left the 
United States under contracts made here to enter and serve as soldiers in the British 
army." 

Will any one pretend that this was more than meager justice for the 
wrongs we had received ? Complaint after complaint had been made, 
assurance after assurance had been given that the government had full 
information as to the unlawful acts of British officers and agents ; and 
yet all that is asked is the smallest measure of justice, and even this is 
superciliously, if not insultingly denied. 

The note of the 15th of July was not acted upon by Mr. Buchanan, 
for the reason as he explains in a note to Mr. Marcy, under date of 
October 30th. He says :— 



444 ^ ALBERT G. BROWN. 

" I had, previously to its arrival, transmitted to you a copy of Lord Clarendon's 
note, already referred to, of the 16th of July, on the subject of the enlistment and 
employment of soldiers for the British army vrithin our limits, and had informed his 
lordship, in acknowledging the receipt of this note, that I should have much satis- 
faction in transmitting a copy of it to the Secretary of State. Of course it would 
have been improper for me to take any new step in this matter until I should learn 
whether this note would prove satisfactory to yourself." 

Now let us see what impression this note produced on the mind of the 
American Minister ; and whether it is diflferent from that which would 
be produced on the mind of any one who read it until he examined the 
residue of the correspondence. Mr. Buchanan says : — 

" The general tenor of this note — its disavowals and its regret — were certainly 
conciliatory, and the concluding paragraph, declaring that all proceedings for enlist- 
ment in North America had been put an end to by her Majesty's government, for 
the avowed reason that the advantages which her Majesty's service might derive 
from such enlistments would not be sought for by her Majesty's government, if it 
were supposed to be obtained in disregard of the respect due to the laws of the United 
States, was highly satisfactory. It was for these reasons that I expressed the satis- 
faction I would have in communicating it to you." 

" I can assure you, that I did not entertain the most remote idea that this question 
had not been satisfactorily adjusted until I learned the complicity of Mr. Crampton 
in the aflfair. This was officially communicated to me in your despatch, No. 107, of 
the 8th, received on the 24th of September." 

I think no one can read this despatch without coming to the same 
conclusion at which I have arrived — that it was designed by the British 
government for no other purpose than to put our government off its 
guard. Repeated assurances were given by our government that the 
laws were being violated, and the British government could have arrested 
that course of conduct at any moment when it chose to do so. To me 
it is a matter of very little consequence, whether the wrong was the 
result of deliberate design, or of a contemptuous disregard of our 
rights. I believe I would somewhat prefer, that the British government 
would directly, immediately, and purposely insult ours, rather than shuffle 
us off as a gentleman does a low fellow who comes to hira and calls him 
to account for some rude expression, and says, " that I do not recollect 
that I said so, but if I did I am sorry for it." I am not disposed to 
see my government shuffled aside so lightly as that. 

"Thus much," adds Mr. Buchanan at the conclusion of his despatch, 
" I have deemed necessary to place myself rectus in curia." 

It is certainly to be regretted that Mr. Buchanan had not at an 
earlier day, " learned the com'plicity of Mr. Crampton in this affair." 
The magnitude of the offence against our territorial sovereignty would 
have been comprehended by him at once, and instead of expressing the 
" satisfaction he would have in transmitting Lord Clarendon's note to 
Mr. Marcy," he would have informed his lordship promptly that his 
note was not satisfactory. No one can fail to see that while a small 
measure of redress might atone for an infraction of our laws by British 
subjects or servants in subordinate positions, yet, if these laws are 
broken, and the sovereignty of the country insulted by a Minister Pleni- 
potentiary, it is quite a different affair. In that case it becomes a mat- 
ter of the gravest moment, and is in fact the same as if done by the 
sovereign herself, and requires the same measure of redress. 

It will therefore be seen why it was that Mr. Marcy, in the first in- 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 445 

stance asked but little of the British government, and why Mr. 
Buchanan may have thought all had been obtained that the case re- 
quired. Neither of them knew of Mr. Crampton's connection with 
this business. Mr. Marcy was slow to believe in his complicity, 
and never ventured to charge it upon him until the 5th of September ; 
and Mr. Buchanan knew nothing of it until the receipt of the despatch 
of September 8th, Avhich was received by him in London on the 24th 
of that month. 

From this date the whole case assumed a different and graver aspect. 
Instead of being adjusted, as was hoped by Mr. Buchanan, and, I may 
add by all our countrymen, it grew into a question of the gravest 
national importance. 

About this time — to wit, on the 21st of September — the trial of 
Hertz commenced at Philadelphia, and resulted in his conviction on the 
28th of that month. On this trial the government presented the evi- 
dence on which it mainly relied to prove Mr. Crampton's complicity ; 
and I undertake to say no one can read it without being satisfied that 
the British Minister was the prime mover, chief instigator, the head and 
front of the whole offending ; and, moreover, that the declaration so 
imposingly put forth by Lord Clarendon, that "no evidence can be 
found to establish any well-founded charge against her Majesty's ser- 
vants," is shown to have been utterly fallacious. 

The petulant manner in which Lord Clarendon met the demand for 
explanations, redress, and satisfaction for these serious offences has 
already been noticed in my brief comments on his ill-tempered note of 
the 27th of September, to Mr. Buchanan ; I may have occasion to 
advert to that note again. 

After the delivery of Mr. Marcy's note of the 18th of October, in 
which he so effectually disposes of his lordship's sophistry, and so point- 
edly, yet quietly, rebukes his ill-temper, his lordship appears to have 
seen with a clearer vision, and in fact, to have been aroused to a con- 
sciousness of the importance of the issue between the two governments. 

It is indeed refreshing to witness the improved temper of his next 
despatch, bearing date November 16. After sundry conciliatory expres- 
sions, and a distinct recognition of the two grounds of complaint against 
her Majesty's officers and agents — to wit, that they have infringed our 
laws, and, besides, violated our sovereign territorial rights — he says : — 

" Now, with respect to both these charges, I have to observe that the information 
possessed by her Majesty's government is imperfect, and that none of a definite cha- 
racter has been supplied by the despatches of Mr. Marcy, inasmuch as no individual 
British officer or agent is named, and no particular fact, or time, or place is stated ; 
and it is therefore impossible at the present to know either who is accused by Mr. 
Marcy, or what is the charge he makes, or what is the evidence on which he intends to 

rely. 

" Her Majesty's government have no means of knowing who are the persons really 
indicated by the general words 'officers and agents of her Majesty's government :' 
whether such persons as those who [have] been under trial are the only persons 
meant to be charged, or, if not, who else is to be included, or what evidence against 
them is relied upon by the United States government." 

This language is cautious enough, but its sincerity may well be ques- 
tioned. "No individual officer or agent is named," says his lordship, 
we " have no means of knowing who are the persons really indicated," 
or "what evidence against them is relied on," &c. It would hardly be 



446 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

believed by one who had not read the preceding correspondence, that, 
at the very moment of writing this note, Lord Clarendon was in pos- 
session of Mr. Marcy's letter to Mr. Crampton, in which he accuses 
+hat officer in these words : *' The President perceives, with much regret, 
chat the disclosures implicate you in these proceedings." * * * * 
" The information in his possession does not allow him to doubt," &c. 
Will it be believed that he was ignorant of "the evidence relied on" 
by this government, when it is known that Mr. Buchanan had furnished 
him a copy of the evidence taken on the trial of Hertz, and which evi- 
dence clearly implicated Mr. Crampton, and Consuls Rowcroft, Barclay, 
and Matthew, together with other officers or agents of her Majesty's 
government ? Mr. Buchanan says, in a despatch dated November 2, 
that the testimony of the witness Strobel " was confirmed by several 
documents implicating Mr. Crampton, which had been given in evidence 
on the trial of Hertz. I told him he would see this on a perusal of the 
trial itself, of which I gave him a copy." 

His lordship further says, the " violation of the sovereign territorial 
rights of the United States" alleged is the recruiting within the United 
States ; but to assume that there was in fact any such recruiting (that 
is, hiring or retaining by British officers) is to beg the question ; and 
this he says in the face of the fact that Hertz had been convicted before 
and sentenced by Judge Kane, the very judge on whose exposition of 
the law he had relied with so much confidence in another despatch. 
Hertz was not technically an officer, it is true, but he was an agent of 
her Majesty, and he was acting under the advice and auspices of her 
Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary, John F. Crampton ; and Lord Clar- 
endon knew it when he wrote this note of November 16. 

His lordship mentions, rather deprecatingly, that "Mr. Marcy cites 
no authority for the position he assumes," and he declares that "high 
authority might be quoted directly adverse;" but it is noticeable that 
his lordship cites no authority for his opinion. Before this he will have 
learned that Mr. Marcy is sustained by most of the eminent writers on 
international law. It is but just to allow the Secretary of State to speak 
for himself on this point. After restating his positions, and adverting to 
the fact that it has been controverted by Lord Clarendon, he says : — 

" This, as a rule of international law, was considered so well settled that it was 
not deemed necessary to invoke the authority of publicists to support it. I am not 
aware that any modern writer on international law has questioned its soundness. 
As this important principle is controverted by Lord Clarendon, and as its mainte- 
nance is fatal to his defence of British recruiting here, I propose to establish it by a 
reference to a few elementary writers of eminence upon the law of nations : — 

" ' Since a right of raising soldiers is a right of majesty which cannot be violated 
by a foreign nation, it is not permitted to raise soldiers on the territory of another 
without the consent of its sovereign,' — Woljius. 

" Vattel says that — 

" ' The man who undertakes to enlist soldiers in a foreign country, without the 
sovereign's permission, and, in general, whoever entices away the subjects of another 
state, violates one of the most sacred rights of the prince and the nation.' 

" He designates the crime by harsher names than I choose to use, which, as he 
says, ' is punished with the utmost severity in every well regulated state.' Vattel 
further observes that — 

" ' It is not presumed that their sovereign has ordered them (foreign recruiters) to 
commit a crime ; and supposing, even, that they had received such an order, they 
ought not to have obeyed it ; their sovereign having no right to command what is 
contrary to the law of nature.' 






OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 447 

" Hautefeuilli , a modern French author of muchrepute, regards permission — and 
acquiescence implies permission — by a neutral power to one belligerent, though 
extended to both, to raise recruits in its territories, unless it was allowed in peace, 
to be an act of bad faith, which compromits its neutrality. 

" There can be no well founded distinction, in the rule of international law, be- 
tween raising soldiers for a belligerent's army and sailors for its navy within a neu- 
tral country. Ilautefeuille says : — 

" ' The neutral sovereign is under obligation to prohibit and prevent all levying 
of sailors upon its territory for the service of the belligerents.' 

" Again he says : — 

" ' The neutral must prohibit, in an absolute manner, the levying of sailors upon 
its territory to complete a ship's company reduced by combat, or any other cause. 

" ' The prohibition to engage sailors on a territory of a pacific prince must extend 
to foreigners who are found in the ports of his jurisdiction, and even to those who 
belong to the belligerent nation owning the vessel that wishes to complete its crew 
or ship's company.' 

" Reference to other writers might be made to sustain the position contended for 
by this government, and to overthrow that advanced by Lord Clarendon, but the 
authority of those presented is deemed sufficient for that purpose." 

Whether Lord Clarendon will be able to cite authority so directly in 
point to sustain his denial of Mr. Marcy's position, remains to be seen. 

There is a passage towards the close of Lord Clarendon's despatch, 
which I introduce for the purpose of expressing my unqualified approval 
of the sentiment it contains, and to say that I, in common with the 
whole American people, as I firmly believe, regret, deeply regret, that 
the same spirit had not animated the whole of her Britannic Majesty's 
officers, agents, and subjects, at home and abroad, from the commence- 
ment of this business. It would have saved a deal of trouble. This is 
the passage : — 

" The foregoing acts and considerations, which demonstrate that no offence to the 
United States was offered or contemplated by her Majesty's government, may, per- 
haps, have weight with Mr. Marcy, if the matter at issue is to be settled in a 
manner becoming the governments of Great Britain and the United States, and with 
a deep sense of the responsibility which weighs on them to maintain, uninterrupted 
and unshaken, the relations of friendship which now exist between the two countries ; 
and her Majesty's government, fully reciprocating the feelings of the United States 
government, expressed in Mr. Marcy's despatch, with regard to the many ties and 
sympathies which connect together the people of the two countries, do not permit 
themselves to doubt that such further discussions as may take place on this question 
will be conducted in a spirit of conciliation." 

To all of that I utter a hearty amen. 

To this despatch of November 16, Mr. Marcy replies on the 28th of 
December in one of those masterly notes which a great mind produces 
only on great occasions. If the American Secretary had written no- 
thing else, he might well rest his hopes of future fame on this letter. It 
is clear, distinct, and unmistakable in its positions, cogent and conclu- 
sive in its arguments, and powerfully overwhelming in its conclusions. 
The British Secretary is left not one inch of ground to stand on; and 
the complicity of Mr. Crampton, and other British officials, with the 
transaction in question, is demonstrated to a mathematical certainty. If 
they are not guilty they are the most unfortunate men alive. Other 
men (worse men of course) have been convicted and punished on weaker 
testimony. 

I have not time to present the strong points of this paper, and I will 
not mar it by taking short extracts. No one desirous of reaching the 
kernel of this dispute should fail to read it carefully. It concludes as 



448 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

it should, witli a firm demand on the British government to recall Mr. 
Crampton, and consuls Rowecroft, Matthew, and Barclay, her Britannic 
Majesty's consuls at Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York. 

I have now, Mr. President, run hastily through this correspondence, 
saving only the concluding note of Mr. Buchanan, written on the Ist of 
February of this year, to which I need not refer for any purpose con- 
nected with this debate. The conclusions to which my mind has arrived 
are briefly these: — 

1. That the United States met the proposition of the British govern- 
ment for strict neutrality in a spirit of generous confidence, promising 
that " no Russian privateer should be equipped, or victualled, or admitted, 
with its prizes, in our ports ;" and the United States has rigidly kept 
her faith. 

2. That the British government — the first to ask neutrality — was the 
first to violate our laws of neutrality; and while for her own safety she 
was quick to place us under pledges not to countenance Russia, she was 
just as quick to invade our soil with a recruiting force, to violate our 
laws, infringe our rights of territorial sovereignty, and put at hazard 
our peace with a friendly power. 

3. When called on for an explanation of her conduct in this regard, 
she denied, through her Secretary for Foreign Affairs, all complicity on 
the part of her officers and servants in these proceedings. She under- 
took to set our laws at defiance by asserting that her Majesty's govern- 
ment had "an incontestable right" to "appoint a place within her Ma- 
jesty's dominions, to which recruits might be drawn from the United 
States to fill her Majesty's armies;" knoAving at the time she took this 
position, that our laws made it a high misdemeanor for any person to 
hire another to "^o beyond the limits of the United States ivith the in- 
tent of being enlisted in the service of any foreign state." 

4. That Lord Clarendon undertook the defence and justification of 
"her Majesty's officers and servants," for this purpose citing as 
authority Judge Kane's opinion on the hearing of Hertz's case on a 
habeas corpus ; misquoting the learned judge, and wholly omitting then, 
or at any other time thereafter, to mention the fact that Hertz had 
been convicted before, and sentenced by the same judge. The convic- 
tion of Hertz proved that the law had been violated ; and the justice 
of that conviction was placed beyond dispute by the fact that, according 
to Lord Clarendon, Judge Kane rightly expounded the law. The com- 
plicity of her Majesty's officers and servants is more clearly demon- 
strated by the evidence in Hertz's case, than is the guilt of Hertz. If 
he violated the law, they hired him to do it. 

5. While Lord Clarendon asserts that he gave strict orders to British 
consuls " not to violate the laws," and enjoined on Mr. Crampton " above 
all to have no concealment from the United States government," he de- 
fends these parties, and undertakes to justify their conduct, after it is 
shown that the consuls at Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York, 
have violated the laws, and that Mr. Crampton was scrupulously careful 
to conceal all his movements from the government and people of the 
United States, having recourse to ciphers and cabalistic characters for 
this purpose in his telegraphic communications with his associates. 

6. That, having obtained from Mr. Buchanan a quasi acknowledg- 
ment of satisfaction, on a partial understanding of the case, he under- 



OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 449 

took, after its full development, to plead this acknowledgment in bar of 
any further inquiry, and became petulant and irascible when he failed 
of his purpose. 

7. When Mr. Marcy, satisfied of Crampton's connection with this busi- 
ness, charged it upon him, he neither attempted to palliate nor deny it, 
but sent home for instructions, thus virtually acknowledging that he was 
acting under orders, and that the Home Government must take the re- 
sponsibility. 

8. Lord Clarendon continued to maintain that our laws had not been 
violated, asserting that, though we had resorted to despotic means to 
obtain evidence, nothing had or could be elicited to establish a charge 
against her Majesty's servants, and this after Hertz had been convicted, 
and the complicity of Crampton, Barclay, Matthew, Rowecroft, and 
others clearly demonstrated. 

9. All these and other considerations, which are developed by the 
testimony and the correspondence, force the mind with irresistible power 
to the conclusion that there has been either a deliberate purpose to in- 
fringe our rights and violate our laws, or else an insulting indifference 
shown as to whether they were or were not infringed and violated. 
That their professions of friendship are not sincere ; or, if they are, that 
the British cabinet place so low an estimate on our dignity as a nation 
as to conclude that, if they are our friends, they may treat us as they 
please. Either position is inadmissible. 

10. And, finally, that the President and Secretary have, from the 
commencement, manifested a proper American spirit, and have lived up 
to the maxim of " asking for nothing but what is right, and submitting 
to nothing that is wrong." That no excuse or apology has been offered 
that ought to have been accepted. That they were right in asking the 
recall of the offending officers ; and if the British cabinet refuse to recall 
them they ought to dismiss them forthwith. Such, sir, are the conclu- 
Bions to which my mind has arrived. 

It seems to me, sir, this question may be understood by reducing it to 
an issue as between private gentlemen. Let us for a moment put the 
two governments aside, and suppose the controversy to exist between 
General Pierce and Lord Clarendon. His lordship has personal interests 
to be looked after on the estate of General Pierce, and for that purpose 
he sends his private and confidential servant. The General receives the 
servant on the implied understanding that he is to commit no trespass, 
nor violate in any way the domestic regulations of the estate. In a 
short time he is found taking unwarrantable liberties with the General's 
property, and inciting his domestics to acts of insubordination. The 
General complains to his lordship, and is answered that " stringent in- 
structions were given to the servant not to act improperly, and above all 
things not to have any concealment from General Pierce ;" and his lord- 
ship adds, "I am sorry if anything has been done by my servant to give 
offence." Willing to settle the matter on easy terras, and not under- 
standing fully what the servant has been doing, the General expresses a 
qualified satisfaction. Soon after, he finds that his lordship's servant, 
instead of discontinuing his objectionable practices, is still actively car- 
rying them on, and to assure himself against detection, has resorted to 
secret signs and " ciphers," with which to communicate with the 
servants about the premises. General Pierce calls on Lord Clarendon 
29 



450 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

a second time, communicates these facts, and assures him that he has 
abundant proof of the continued misconduct of his servant, and respect- 
fully but earnestly remonstrates against his being allowed thus to act. 
His lordship — instead of listening to the complaint, and at once satisfy- 
ing the General of his sincere friendship, by reprimanding or removing 
the obnoxious servant — asserts that the servant has done nothing but 
•what he had the right to do; accuses the General of resorting to 
despotic measures to get up testimony against him ; and, finally, winds 
up the whole matter by broadly intimating that, as the General does not 
keep his own domestics in very good order, he has no right to be com- 
plaining of other people's servants. 

On this statement of the case what would any fair-minded man say ? 
Would not the universal judgment of every just man be that General 
Pierce's conduct had been gentlemanly and forbearing, while that of 
Lord Clarendon had been deceptive, haughty, supercilious, insolent, and 
overbearing, and that a decent self-respect would require the General to 
send the servant home with a civil message to his master to keep him 
there until they both learned better manners. 

Now, if you will substitute the United States for General Pierce, 
Great Britain for Lord Clarendon, Mr. Crampton for his lordship's con- 
fidential servant, and the people tampered with for the domestics of 
General Pierce, you have this whole enlistment imbroglio in a nutshell. 
What the President means to do I am not authorized to say ; but if 
he does not give Mr. Crampton his passports, and revoke the exequaturs 
of consuls Matthew, Barclay, Rowecroft, and others complicated in this 
business, we had as well hang the national harp upon a willow, and cease 
talking about the honor and glory of our country. 

In what I have felt called upon to say, Mr. President, it has been my 
purpose to speak plainly — if you please, bluntly — for I am a plain, blunt 
man ; but it has been no part of my purpose to incite a war spirit in the 
country. Next to dishonor, I should regard a war, and a war with 
Great Britain especially, as the greatest calamity that could befall our 
country. If the British government is not seeking a quarrel with us, we 
shall have no war. We are right in the controversy ; and when Lord 
Clarendon and the British cabinet and people see that we are in earnest, 
and mean to be respected, they will do us justice, unless they are seek- 
ing war. If, on the other hand. Great Britain is seeking a quarrel, we 
may have war. The present affords her a decent pretext for urging it 
on ; and in that view of the subject the sooner matters are brought to 
an issue the better. 

I know not by what spirit the British cabinet may be actuated, but on 
the good sense, the sound judgment, and the interested friendship of the 
British people, I have the firmest reliance. They will make no war 
with us if they can help it. The calamities to our country would be 
great indeed ; but the disasters to British trade, to British labor, and to 
British commerce would be incalculable. A war would stop our cotton 
' gins, but it would also stop her spinning jennies. If she can afford to 
quit spinning cotton, we can afford to quit raising it. But enough of 
this. I hope we shall have no war ; there is not an American citizen 
who ought to desire it. I hope there are very few who would not 
avoid it so long as it can be avoided on honorable terms ; nor one who 
would not hail it as a blessing, if the honor of the country required it. 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 451 

It is to be hoped that the British government will not push this matter 
to the ultima ratio of war, or submission to her will, and the insolence 
of her servants. If she does, I choose the former : the country, in my 
opinion, with one voice will choose the former. It will be found that 
our love of peace does not carry us to the point of craven submission to 
insult ; and that however we may differ and wrangle among ourselves, 
we demand respect from strangers towards every member of the political 
household. As against a common foe we should, I am sure, present a 
broad, united front extending from Maine to California. We should vie 
with one another in deeds of devotion to a common and beloved country. 
We should show the world that, broad as our country is, diversified as 
are her interests, she is loved with a singleness of devotion by all her 
sons ; that we love her great valleys, and her high mountains ; her deep, 
blue lakes, and her broad, clear rivers ; her fertile soil, and her rich 
mines ; her great cities, and her vast commerce ; that she is ours in all 
her grand proportions, and that 

" The pedestal on which her glory stands 
Is built of all our hearts and all our hands." 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 25, 1856, ON THE 
JURISDICTION OF CONGRESS OVER THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 

Mr. President : I do not desire to occupy the attention of the Sen- 
ate, because it is my wish to have the District bills disposed of as soon 
as possible ; but after the debate which has occurred, I feel it to be my 
duty to say a few words. 

I differ from the senator from Georgia in regard to the question of 
jurisdiction. We start from different points. He says, that the Con- 
stitution gives to Congress the exclusive power over the District of 
Columbia. I think there is something more than that to be taken into 
account. The original proprietors of the soil on which the city of 
Washington now stands, when they ceded the soil to Congress, expressly 
provided that the jurisdiction over the streets and reservations should 
remain in Congress, for the benefit of the people of the United States. 
When you accepted the cession, it was, as a matter of course, upon the 
conditions of the deeds. According to the original authorities, accord- 
ing to your Presidents, your Congresses, your Attorneys-General, and 
all who examined the subject, it was decided that the jurisdiction was 
in Congress and was inalienable. That this thirty-fourth Congress has 
the right to give a particular party the privilege of occupying a street 
or reservation for the time being, I am ready to admit ; but if the next 
Congress be dissatisfied with it, they have a right to require the party 
occupying it under the authority of the thirty-fourth Congress to remove 
from its occupancy. The ground on which the report of the committee, 
on which the senator from Georgia has commented, is based, is that no 
one Congress has a right to cede the streets and reservations in perpe- 
tuity either to a corporation or to an individual. 



452 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

The report does not deny that Congress may give to this company 
the temporary use and occupancy of a portion of Pennsylvania avenue. 
What it denies clearly and distinctly is, that Congress has power to cede 
the occupancy of the territory in perpetuity to a corporation ; because 
that is a cession of the jurisdiction which no one Congress can make, 
on the broad ground that the jurisdiction must be exercised equally by 
one Congress as by another. 

My friend from Georgia says that, under the act of 1854, this com- 
pany had the right to cross Pennsylvania avenue. I take issue with him 
on that point. By the first section of the law it was clearly contem- 
plated that the road should cross the Potomac river, above the aqueduct, 
at Georgetown, and then it was provided that they should not pass 
through or along Pennsylvania avenue. If you will take up the map 
of the city you will see, that if they crossed the Potomac river at that 
point they would have had no occasion whatever to pass through, along, or 
across Pennsylvania avenue. Congress, in enacting that section, de- 
signed to prevent their passing along or through the avenue from George- 
town to Washington. The company had not then proposed to cross Penn- 
sylvania avenue. They proposed to bring their road to the Potomac river, 
and to cross the river at a point above Georgetown, and hence they 
would have to go out of their way to cross'Pennsylvania avenue. Their 
proposition, then, was to come into the avenue at its western end, and come 
along and through it to the Capitol, and then turn off to the Baltimore and 
Ohio depot. Congress was guarding against the proposition then before 
them. 

If anything which was suggested, or if anything which was before 
Congress, could have led, in tiie remotest possible degree, to the sup- 
position that there was a purpose to cross Pennsylvania avenue, the 
phrase, "you shall not cross it," would have been used. The very fact 
that it was then proposed to come over the Potomac above Georgetown 
excluded the possibility of anybody entertaining the idea that they 
meant to cross Pennsylvania avenue. That would bring them into 
Washington at a point north of the avenue; and why once being north 
of it, they should cross it to the south, and then cross it again to another 
point to reach the Baltimore depot, and take this zigzag course, would 
be unexplainable. They would have had to cross it twice, if that wa^ 
their object. There would have been no sense and no reason in that. 
As I have stated, however, the proposition was, that they should have 
power to come along the avenue, to occupy it, to put their railroad 
upon it, and Congress meant to guard against that. There was no pro- 
position at that time to cross the Potomac at the Long Bridge. I will 
read the enactment. The first section of the act provided : — 

" That the Alexandria and Washington Railroad Company, incorporated by the 
legislature of Virginia on the 27th of February, 1854, to construct a railroad from 
Alexandria, in the state of Virginia, to the city of Washington, in the District of 
Columbia, be, and they are hereby, authorized to extend their road from any point 
on the Virginia side of the Potomac river to which said road may be constructed, at 
or above the aqueduct of the Alexandria Canal, into the District of Columbia." 

Not at the Long Bridge, where they are now crossing the river. No 
authority was given them to cross the river at that point, but "at or 
above the aqueduct," which is two or three miles beyond the point 
where they are now crossing the river. What then ? The act goes on 
to provide : — 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 453 

" Connecting with the Baltimore and Washington Railroad depot by the most con- 
venient and practicable route or routes, passing through and along such streets and 
avenues, except the Pennsylvania avenue, of Washington and Georgetown, as the 
corporate authorities thereof may respectively approve, subject to certain conditions 
hereinafter expressed." 

The whole legislation proceeded on the idea that they were to cross 
the Potomac river at, or above, the aqueduct ; and that then they should 
not come along Pennsylvania avenue. They were not interdicted the 
privilege of crossing the avenue, because nobody supposed that they 
could ever design to do such a thing. If they had proposed to cross 
the Potomac river at the Long Bridge, Congress, no doubt, would have 
said, " You shall not cross Pennsylvania avenue ;" because then it would 
have occurred to everybody at once, that if the railroad reached this 
side of the river by way of the Long Bridge, it would be necessary to 
pass over Pennsylvania avenue in order to get to the Baltimore depot. 
Inasmuch, however, as they proposed to come across the Potomac river 
at a point far above the bridge, and above the termination of the ave- 
nue, there was no necessity for saying that they should not cross the 
avenue, for such a thing could not have been in contemplation. I think 
that it is perfectly clear. 

My friend from Georgia says that this whole question is one of con- 
venience to senators. No, sir, it is no question of convenience to sena- 
tors. The question is whether we shall preserve this great thoroughfare 
from the encroachments of private corporations ? If this were the only 
means of connecting Alexandria and Washington by a railroad, I would 
say, whatever might be the temporary inconvenience, I would grant it ; 
but that is not so. You have graded the streets ; you have made them 
convenient for laying down a railroad track ; and a private company 
occupies them because you have expended the public money in prepar- 
ing them for the track. 

Mr. President, the whole scheme Involved in this matter is an attempt 
to induce Congress to build a bridge across the Potomac river for the 
benefit of a private company. This matter commenced by an appeal to 
Congress to allow this company to cross the Long Bridge with its rail- 
road. Congress refused, and told them, " You shall not cross there at 
all, but you must reach the District side of the river at or above the 
aqueduct." Next we ascertain that they are running a railroad toward 
the Long Bridge on both sides of the river, not, it is true, crossing the 
Long Bridge, but evidently contemplating that Congress hereafter is to 
build a bridge at that point, and give this company the right to run 
their railroad on it, which is but giving them $1,000,000, I tell you 
now, from the national treasury for a private company. It will cost 
$1,000,000 to construct a bridge across the river suited for a railroad 
at this point ; and this company now contemplate the erection of a 
bridge there by the government for their private use. If they did not 
so contemplate, it would be a matter of no consequence to them whether 
they ran the railroad where it now is, or not. 

I have said that, if there were no other way of connecting Alexan- 
dria and Washington, I should withdraw my objection, and allow this 
track to remain where it is ; but there is another way, a better way, a 
more convenient way, a more proper way in all respects ; and that is to 
allow the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company to cross the eastern 
branch of the Potomac at the Navy Yard, to go down on the north side 



I 



454 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

of- the Potomac river, to cross the Potomac opposite Alexandria, by 
steam ferry-boats, thus abstaining from interference in the navigation 
of one of God's great highways. Sir, I esteem this whole proceeding 
as but an incipient step towards the erection of a bridge below George- 
town, which is to be permanent, and lasting, and ruinous to that ancient 
city. While I feel bound to protect the interests of Washington, I also 
feel bound to protect the interests of Georgetown. Both are within 
the District of Columbia ; both are subject to our care, and both should 
receive our protection. I tell you now, sir, that, if you permit this ob- 
struction to stand, the result will be that by and by this company will 
cross the Potomac at a point near that where the Long Bridge now 
stands, and on a bridge erected by the government out of the public 
funds. That is the scheme ; I am opposed to it. If they wish to cross 
the Potomac at or above the aqueduct, as the law prescribed, let them 
do it ; or if they wish to change their policy, and cross the eastern 
branch at the Navy Yard, and go down on the north side of the Poto- 
mac, and reach Alexandria by a steam ferry-boat from a point opposite 
that city, let them do that ; neither will interfere with the commerce of 
Georgetown, nor with any of the rights given to any portion of the 
people of this District by nature. 

I shall not go further into the question ; in fact, I did not rise to dis- 
cuss it ; but when the senator from Georgia attacks the report in this 
case as resting upon unsound principles, I beg to say to him that I have 
looked somewhat into the authorities, and I feel perfectly assured that on 
the legal proposition we are right : that this company had no authority 
to put the road where they have put it, and that they placed it there in 
violation of law. I say further that the city authorities of Washington 
have no jurisdiction over the streets. I do not mean to say that the 
corporate authorities have not the power to improve, to adorn, to beau- 
tify these streets. I do not mean to say that Congress may not give 
them the temporary jurisdiction over the streets ; but I do pretend to 
say, on the authorities which I have consulted, that the jurisdiction is 
so perfectly vested in Congress for the benefit of the people of the 
United States that it is inalienable, and that they have no right to part 
with it. 

Mr. Toombs. I ask the senator if we have any more jurisdiction 
over this District than Mississippi has within her limits ? 

Mr. BRO\yN. Certainly not. 

Mr. Toombs. Cannot Mississippi vest the control of the streets and 
avenues in the city of Natchez in the corporate authorities of that city ? 

Mr. Brown. I stated before that you received the precise soil on 
which Washington City stands, not by a deed of cession from Maryland 
and its acceptance by the United States. I know that, by that deed, 
you got the general political jurisdiction under the Constitution ; but in 
addition to that, there were special deeds from the proprietors of the 
soil, giving it to the United States on conditions which they expressly 
prescribed in the conveyance. One of these was that the jurisdiction 
should be in the United States or in Congress, for the benefit of the 
people of the United States. If you can violate the deeds under which 
you hold the soil, and under which you accepted the property from the 
original proprietors, you can cede jurisdiction in perpetuity to the cor- 
poration of Washington ; but I maintain that you cannot do it. If you 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 465 

can, what Congress is to do it ? This one ? Will not the next Con- 
gress have the same power which this has ? If the two agree, will not 
the third have the same power that both the others had? I hold the 
doctrine to be sound, that when the jurisdiction is in Congress for the 
benefit of the people, you may grant the temporary use, but you cannot 
alienate the jurisdiction. This is the doctrine of the report. 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, APRIL 28, 1856. 

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the bill to au- 
thorize the people of the territory of Kansas to form a constitution and state 
government, preparatory to their admission into the Union when they have the re- 
quisite population — Mr. Brown, said : — 

With the indulgence of the Senate, I propose to submit a thought 
or two on some of the points involved in this debate. 

I will not enter the list with those whose range is over the whole wide 
field which this Kansas question has opened up ; but shall confine my- 
self to a few points on which I think the controversy mainly rests — 
points which I believe lie further back than most of our speakers have 
yet gone. To whom does the proprietorship of the territories belong ? 
How far does the legislative authority of Congress extend over the ter- 
ritories ? What are the political rights of the inhabitants there, and in 
whom does the sovereignty reside ? These are the points which I mean, 
not separately, but collectively, to consider. It is time we had come to 
an understanding on these points ; a failure to do so at the proper time 
has, I think, involved us in much of the embarrassment which we now 
suffer. 

It will be seen at once that the line of argument which I have 
marked out for myself will lead me to consider, to some extent, the doc- 
trine of " squatter sovereignty." This doctrine, however well designed 
by its authors, has, in my judgment, been the fruitful source of half our 
troubles. Before the people of the two sections of the Union having — 
as they supposed, though I think erroneously — hostile interests, and al- 
ready inflamed by angry passions, were invited into the country, we, 
who gave them laws, should have defined clearly and distinctly what 
were to be their rights after they got there. Nothing should have been 
left to construction. I believed when the Kansas bill was passed that 
it conferred on the inhabitants of the territories, during their territorial 
existence, no right to exclude, or in anywise to interfere with, slavery. 
I then thought, and still think, it the duty of the law-making power in 
a territory to treat all property alike ; to give the same protection to 
one species of property that it gives to another. But I knew at the 
time, and still know, that others were of a different opinion. Many, 
whose opinions I am accustomed to respect, believed that the law-makers 



i56 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

could discriminate against slave property. It is time we had settled this 
delicate and perplexing question. To me it is, therefore, a source of 
unfeigned satisfaction that the senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] has 
brought forward this bill. I see in it the germs of a final and lasting 
settlement on a firm and a solid basis. It carries out the original design 
of the Kansas-Nebraska act as I understood it. It fixes the period at 
which the inhabitants of a territory may ask its admission into the 
Union as a state ; and the report by which it is accompanied denies all 
sovereignty in the territory during its territorial existence. If we pass 
it, it will be done, I hope, on the distinct understanding that, hereafter, 
a territory can only ask admission into the Union as a state after it is 
ascertained by a census, lawfully taken, that it has the required federal 
population to entitle it to at least one representative in Congress, and 
upon the further understanding that the sovereignty is not in the 

, territory, but that it is in abeyance, held by the states or the United 
States in trust for the territory until its admission as a state. 

The advocates of state-rights have always held that the territories 
are the common property of the states ; that one state has the same in- 
terest in them as another; and that a citizen of one state has the same 
rights to go to them as a citizen of any other state. The corollary, 
therefore, has been, that a citizen of any one state has the same right 
as a citizen of any other state to go into the territories and take with 
him whatever is recognised as property in the state from which he goes. 
Thus, if a citizen of Massachusetts may go and take with him a bale 
of goods, a citizen of Tennessee may go and take a barrel of whiskey ; 
and if a citizen of New York may go and take a horse, a citizen of 
Mississippi may go and take a slave. It must be so, or else the equality 
of the parties is destroyed — Tennessee becomes inferior to Massa- 

' chusetts, and the rights of a Mississippian are inferior to those of a 
New Yorker. 

This doctrine finds opposition nowhere but among the advocates of 
that uncertain theory which some call territorial sovereignty, others 
popular sovereignty, and others again squatter sovereignty — a theory 
which the author of this bill so well combats in the declaration " that 
the sovereignty of a territory remains in abeyance, suspended in the 
United States, in trust for the people, until they shall be admitted into 
the Union as a state." To this declaration I give my assent. It would, 
perhaps, have been more exact to have said that the sovereignty is in the 
states ; but if it is in the United States as a trust, it can never be used 
by the trustee for his own purposes ; and therefore, while it may not be 
so sound in theory, it will be found quite as safe in practice, to admit 
that it is in the United States. 

I have said that the states were equal and had equal rights in the 
territories ; and I have thereby admitted that Massachusetts is equal to 
Mississippi, and has all the rights in the territories which I claim for 
Mississippi. If this equality does not exist, why does it not ? Did it 
never exist, or has it been destroyed ? That it did exist, is manifest from 
the very nature and structure of the government under which we live. 
The states were equal before they adopted the Constitution, and they 
entered the confederacy as equals. That the equality has not been de- 
stroyed, is proven by the organization of this body, in which the smallest 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 457 

Btate has two votes, and the largest has no more. The states were equals 
out of the Union — they are equals in it. 

The power which can destroy the equality of the states must be that 
supreme power which we call the sovereignty — the power in the states 
which is superior to all other powers. 

Where does this power reside? Is it in Congress? May Congress 
exercise the power of a sovereign in the territories ? 

The doctrine of congressional sovereignty I understand to be denied 
in the report which accompanies this bill. The eminent and distin- 
guished author of that report [Mr. Douglas] reposes the sovereignty in 
the United States in trust for the territory, until it becomes a state. I 
need hardly use an argument to show that a trustee cannot use a trust 
for his own purposes, nor for purposes not clearly embraced in the deed. 
A fund held in trust for an infant, to be delivered when he comes of 
age, must be held without waste, and delivered to him without deduction 
at the proper time. The same rule, I apprehend, will hold as between 
the United States and a territory. 

If Congress may, at pleasure, use a trust confided to the United 
States for the benefit of a territory, so as to exclude slavery from that 
territory, then there can be no reason why Congress may not, in the ex- 
ercise of the same trust, exclude spirituous liquors, foreign and domestic 
goods, or everything else that off"ends the prejudices or excites the pas- 
sions of the trustee, or, I should rather say, the representative of the 
trustee, for Congress is but the representative of the United States. 

I am not going to discuss the constitutional power of Congress to ex- 
clude slavery from the territories. If the argument on that point has 
not already been exhausted, it has at least become threadbare. It is 
asserted and maintained with great unanimity, by all sound Democrats, 
that Congress has no such power. If Congress has not the authority, 
who has ? Where does it reside ? Is it in the territorial legislature ? 
What is a territorial legislature ? It is the creature of Congress. Can 
Congress confer powers it does not itself possess ? Can the creature 
derive powers which do not belong to the creator ? Can the stream rise 
higher than its source ? The manifest answer to all these questions must 
be, NO. Congress can confer on the territories just such powers as itself 
possesses, and none other ; and as Congress does not possess these 
powers, it cannot confer them on the territorial legislature. 

The excluding of slavery, or any other property, from a country, is a 
high act of sovereignty. If Congress, representing the party holding 
the sovereignty in trust, may exercise this power, then Congress ceases 
to be the mere agent of a trustee, and becomes the owner and para- 
mount title-holder. If the territorial legislature may exclude slavery, 
or otherwise exercise the rights of sovereignty in the territory, it must 
do it by virtue of a special grant from the trustee ; but if the United 
States invests the territory with that sovereignty, or any part of it 
which it holds in trust to be delivered up when the territory becomes a 
state, it abuses its trust — as much so as if a guardian, holding property 
in trust for an infant ward, to be delivered when the ward becomes of 
age, abuses his trust if he deliver the property during the minority of 
the ward. 

These reflections have been produced by no disposition to carp at, or 
find fault with, any one's doctrines or opinions, but from an earnest 



458 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

desire to reach wise and salutary conclusions as to what is the true theory 
on this troublesome point. 

There seems to be a certain undefined idea in the minds of some men 
that the sovereignty of a territory is inherent in the people of a terri- 
tory ; that it came to them from on high — a sort of political manna, 
descended from heaven on these children of the forest. This doctrine, 
I confess, is a little too ethereal for me ; I do not comprehend it ; but 
this I know — if the sovereignty is in the people of the territory, whether 
they obtained it from God or men, the conduct of this government towards 
them is most extraordinary. It is nothing short of downright usurpation 
and despotism. We have now seven governors appointed by the Presi- 
dent, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to govern the seven 
territories of the United States. We have seven different sets of terri- 
torial judges, appointed in the same way, to expound the laws for the 
seven territories. We have marshals to arrest, and district attorneys to 
prosecute, the inhabitants of these sovereignties in their own country. 
We require the territories to legislate in obedience to our acts ; and, 
lest they may go astray, we sometimes oblige them to send up their laws 
for our approval. It has happened, time and time again, that their 
legislation has fallen under the disapprobation of Congress, and thereby 
became void. What a mockery to disclaim the sovereignty yourselves, 
declare that it is in the people of the territory, and then send a governor 
to rule them, judges to expound their laws, marshals to arrest, and dis- 
trict attorneys to prosecute them ; and, finally, to require these 
sovereigns to send up their laws for your sanction ; and then, by your 
disapproval, to render them null ! 

If the sovereignty is not in Congress, and not in the territories, you 
ask me where is it ? The question has been answered by the senator 
from Illinois in the very able report which accompanies this bill. He 
says "it is in abeyance, suspended in the United States in trust for the 
people of the territories, until they are admitted into the Union as a 
state." I have already indicated my entire willingness to adopt this 
answer, though I should have answered somewhat differently myself. I 
should have said it is in the states, or, if you please, in the people of 
the states. 

It may be well, in this connection, to give my own views on this 
point. I hold that the rights of sovereignty over the territories, never 
having been delegated to Congress, are, in the language of the Constitu- 
tion, reserved to the states, or to the people of the states. 

When the Constitution was framed, there were no such people as the 
people of the territories. The people spoken of in the Constitution 
must, therefore, have been the people of the states, for there was none 
other. 

The sovereignty being in the states or in the people, Massachusetts 
must retain her part. New York hers, Tennessee hers, Mississippi hers, 
and all the other states their parts respectively, to be held and exercised 
jointly until the territory, with the requisite population, legally and 
constitutionally ascertained, and with a republican form of government, 
asks admission into the Union as a state. As she steps into the Union, 
she becomes coequal with the other states, and, eo instanti, the sover- 
eignty passes from the states as they now exist into the new state. 

It will be seen at once that I make a wide difference between existing 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 459 

and incipient states. On this point, I believe, the practice of the 
government has been right. That practice has marked the difference in 
broad and legible characters between states and territories. The existing 
states have always elected their own governors, appointed their own 
judges, and no man in his wildest fancies has ever dreamed of having 
a state send up her laws for the approval of Congress. The sovereignty 
of the states has been manifested in a full and unrestrained freedom 
with which they have acted on all these points. Exactly the contrary 
has been true in reference to incipient states or territories. Whenever 
they have acted, it has been in subordination to the authority of Con- 
gress — a subordination which, at once, in my judgment, destroys all idea 
of sovereignty. 

The President's annual message to Congress, I am glad to say, is 
marked by a boldness and originality of thought and a frankness of ex- . 
pression that challenges and receives the tribute of my sincere admira- 
tion. In that paper he declares that " the country has been awakened 
to a perception of the constitutional jfrinciple of leaving the matter 
(slavery) to the discretion of the respective existing and incipient 
states." I have no criticism to make on this language; I quote it only 
to say, that if, by an incipient state, the President means a territory 
with the requisite population to entitle it to one representative lawfully 
ascertained, and in the act of forming a constitution preparatory to ad- 
mission into the Union as a state, then I agree with him fully, entirely, 
and cordially. Such an incipient state has the right to settle the slavery 
question for herself. There can remain but one act necessary to the per- 
fection of that right, and that is, her actual admission as a state. If Con- 
gress, however, should exclude her, her action in regard to slavery would 
fall with the rest of her constitution. She would, in that case, resume 
her position as a territory. There can be no such thing as a state out 
of the Union. 

I take this occasion to declare before the Senate, that a territory ask- 
ing admission into the Union as a state ought not to be excluded on the 
ground that her constitution admits or prohibits slavery. If, in all other 
respects, she is prepared for admission, it would be a monstrous outrage . 
to exclude her on account of the pro or aw^e-slavery feature in her pro- 
posed constitution. 

I have not denied, and do not mean to deny, the right of self-govern- 
ment. We may differ as to what constitutes self-government ; but I will 
go as far as any other man in maintaining the right. Do you ask me 
what, in my opinion, the people of a territory have a right to do ? I 
answer, unhesitatingly, they may do whatever is necessary to protect « 
the public morals, or insure the public safety. Thus : the territory may 
require spirituous liquors taken there from Ohio to be so kept and so 
used as that the public morals may not suffer thereby ; and it may re- 
quire a vicious animal taken from another state to be impounded, or so 
disposed of as that the public safety may not be endangered. And, 
upon the same principle, I admit it to be within the competency of the 
territorial legislature to regulate the use of slave property. To regulate, 
however, is one thing; to destroy, without cause, and in simple obedi- 
ence to public prejudice, is another and a very different thing. 

It is competent for the sovereign to say what is and what is not pro- 
perty within his dominions. It will require the highest attributes of 



460 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

sovereignty, however, to determine so important a question as this — at- 
tributes, in my judgment, far above those that belong to this Congress, 
or to the territories — attributes Avhich are inherent in the states, and 
not having been delegated are yet in the states, and nowhere else. 

I have spoken of slaves simply as property, because it is in that rela- 
tion that they will go to the territory, if they go there at all. Con- 
sidered as persons only, there would perhaps be no effort made to ex- 
clude them. The relations between master and slave, parent and child, 
husband and wife, are all proper subjects of legislative regulation ; but 
no one of them more than another is a proper subject for legislative dis- 
tinction. It would be a monstrous exercise of power to dissolve all the 
matrimonial ties in a territory, and absolve all the children from obedi- 
ence to their parents ; and yet it would require no greater power to do 
this than it would to break what is flippantly called the fetters that bind 
a slave to his master. 

Am I asked if there is no power — no right anywhere to abolish or 
prohibit slavery in the territori* ? I answer emphatically that there is. 
It is in the states. A territory is common ground. The states meet 
there as equals. No one has rights superior to another. So long as 
the equality can be maintained and good faith preserved, no prohibitory 
or other act against slavery is necessary. If divisions spring up and 
discord takes the place of harmony, then one of two things may be 
done; and either, in my judgment, will be consistent with the obligations, 
rights, and duties of all the parties to the compact of our Union. 

I do not mean to say that either of these remedies ought to be 
resorted to. On the contrary, I should deprecate a resort to either ; I 
only say that either may he resorted to. If there shall ever be a 
necessity for either, the days of the Union, in my opinion, will be num- 
bered. 

If the states cannot occupy the territory jointly, the first and best 
remedy is to divide it. This may be done by a compact between the 
states. The compact, however, must be made by the states so acting in 
concert as to give the force and effect of a constitutional obligation to 
their expressed will. It cannot be done by Congress nor by the state 
legislatures. Congress may propose, and the states, speaking through 
their legislatures, may ratify an agreement, and thus give it the force 
and binding obligations of a compact. The states, acting through a con- 
vention of delegates so chosen as to represent the sovereignty, could 
make a compact. But as neither Congress nor the state legislatures re- 
present the sovereignty, neither can make a compact that would be 
binding on the states. 

The Missouri compromise, though passed by Congress and acquiesced 
in for a long time by the states, was never a compact, not having re- 
ceived at any time the sanction of the states with a view to make it so. 
I do not mean to say that compacts are provided for in the Constitution ; 
but I do mean to say that, looking to the nature and structure of our 
government, it is my opinion that agreements may be entered into be- 
tween the states that will be of higher authority than mere legislative 
enactments, and yet of lower dignity than a written constitution. If a 
compact, such as I have mentioned, cannot be made, and discord con- 
tinues to reign, the next and only remaining remedy is to prohibit or 
abolish slavery in the territories, as you would do it in the states, by a 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 461 

change of the Federal Constitution. The mode is pointed out in the 
fifth article of the Constitution, in these words: — 

"The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, 
shall propose amendments to this constitution, or, on the application of the legisla- 
tures of two-thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amend- 
ments, vi'hich, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this 
constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, 
or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratifica- 
tion may be proposed by the Congress : Provided, that no amendment, which may be 
made prior to the year 1808, shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses 
in the ninth section of the first article ; and that no state, without its consent, shall 
be deprived of its equal suflfrage in the Senate." 

If it shall be said that this is a plan of impracticable execution, I 
reply, it is so "nominated in the bond" — the bond of our Union, the 
bond of our safety — and I would not demand of you the pound of flesh, 
I will yield nothing to your demands that is not " nominated in the 
bond." 

I utterly deny the power of Congress over slavery in the territories. 
The majority report of the committee, in my judgment, takes the true 
ground, to wit : that Congress derives its power to make laws for the 
territories from that clause in the Constitution which gives it the right 
to admit new states. If Congress has the substantive power to admit a 
new state, it follows, as a necessary incident, that it has the right to 
prepare the state for admission ; but in thus preparing a state, it will be 
an assumption of power not warranted by the grant, to take advantage 
of her weak and dependent condition, and to shape and mould her insti- 
tutions as to force her nolens volens, to take sides with one or the other 
of the parties to a sectional contest. 

It was to avoid all suspicion of foul injustice like this to the territory, 
as well as for the purpose of steering clear of an unhappy and unnatural 
sectional conflict, that the Kansas bill declared it to be " the true intent and 
meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any state or territory, 
nor to exclude it therefrom ; but to leave the people thereof perfectly 
free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, 
subject only to the Constitution." 

I concur fully with the able senator from Illinois in saying that the in- 
habitants of Kansas, during their territorial existence, " are entitled to 
enjoy and exercise all the privileges and rights of self-government, in 
subordination to the Constitution of the United States, and in obedience 
to their organic law, passed by Congress in pursuance of that instru- 
ment." I would leave the people there perfectly free to regulate their 
domestic affairs in their own way, subject to the Constitution and their 
organic law. But I can never admit that the power to regulate carries 
with it the right to destroy ; or that the people of a territory, having 
the right to regulate an institution within their limits, nave necessarily, 
or by any fair inference, the right to exclude that institution from the 
territory. And in this view of the subject I am sustained, I think, by 
the luminous and powerful report of the senator [Mr. Douglas] who in- 
troduced the bill. The senator indicates in that report that Congress 
has no power to exclude from the territories the domestic institutions of 
the states ; and that the territories, deriving their legislative powers 
solely from the Constitution, through the acts of Congress, can, of 
course, do nothing which they are not empowered to do, either by the 



462 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Constitution or by Congress. But it is better, perhaps, to take the very 
words of the report. It says : — 

" The organic act of the territory, deriving its validity from the power of Con- 
gress to admit new states, must contain no provision or restriction which would de- 
stroy or impair the equality of the proposed state with the original states, or impose 
any limitation upon its sovereignty which the constitution has not placed on all the 
states. So far as the organization of a territory may be necessary and proper as a 
means of carrying into eifect the provision of the constitution for the admission of 
new states, and when exercised with reference only to that end, the power of Con- 
gress is clear and explicit ; hut beyond that point the power cannot extend, for the 
reason that all 'powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the 
people.' In other words, the organic law of the territory, conforming to the spirit 
of the grant from which it receives its validity, must leave the people entirely free to 
form and regulate their domestic institutions and internal concerns in their owa 
way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, to the end that when they 
attain the requisite population, and establish a state government in conformity to the 
Federal Constitution, they may he admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the 
original states, in all respects whatsoever." 

This explanation is apposite and conclusive. It denies to Congress 
the constitutional power to go further than to give an organic law to the 
territory ; and it places the denial on the impregnable basis of leaving 
the new state which is to grow out of the territory " at perfect liberty 
to seek admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original 
states in all respects whatsoever." States have been admitted as non- 
slaveholding states, because they chose to exclude slavery ; others have 
been admitted as slaveholding states, because they chose to hold slaves. 
Congress, in the days of their incipiency, did not undertake to mould 
and fashion their institutions. If other states are to be admitted on 
" an equal footing in all respects whatsoever," Congress must preserve 
a like course of non-intervention in their domestic affairs, in the days of 
their incipiency. If Congress has no other power than to give an 
organic law to the territory — if, in the language of the report, " the 
authority cannot extend beyond that point," then it is clear Congress 
has not, because it could not confer upon the territory the right to ex- 
clude slavery; and if, as is pertinently said in another part of the same 
report, "the rights and privileges" of the people of the territory " are 
all derived from the Constitution, through the acts of Congress," and 
" they have no inherent sovereign right to annul the laws" which Con- 
gress has given them, it becomes equally clear that they have no autho- 
rity derived from any quarter — either the Constitution, the acts of 
Congress, or the God of nature, during their period of territorial exist- 
ence, to exclude slavery. Such is my understanding of the report — 
such I believe to be the true intent and meaning of its author; and so 
understanding, and so believing, I give to the report my cordial and 
unqualified endorsement and approval. 

If, contrary to the opinions I have expressed, and contrary to the 
opinions so clearly indicated in the report of the committee, the people 
of a territory have the right to exclude slavery, or other state institutions 
or property, it follows, as a matter of course, that a territory is as much 
a sovereignty as a state. Nebraska is equal in dignity to Virginia ; and 
Kansas may do within her limits whatever South Carolina may do within 
hers. A territory may, and of right ought to, elect its own governor, 
appoint its own judges, make and expound its own laws, and, in short, 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS, 463 

do whatever a free and independent state may, of right, do. Kansas 
would, in fact, be superior in many respects to South Carolina. That 
venerable and patriotic state, having joined the confederacy, has parted 
with her right to make treaties and form alliances ; but Kansas being a 
sovereignty out of the Union, I can conceive of nothing that is to prevent 
her from making treaties, contracting alliances, or doing anything else 
which a sovereignty may do, even to the extent of uniting her destiny 
with that of England or France. If an incipient state is equal to an 
existing state on the subject of slavery, I cannot, for the life of me, see 
why the equality does not extend to everything else ; but I can and do 
see that a state in the Union has parted with many of her political rights, 
whereas a state out of the Union has parted with none of hers ; and, 
therefore, that it is better to be a state out of the Union than a state in it. 

I cannot close my remarks on this branch of the subject without thank- 
ing the honorable senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] for his powerful 
vindication of the constitutional rights of all sections of the country. 
While he deals justice to the South with a liberal hand, he deducts not 
one jot nor tittle from the equal rights of the North. He holds the 
scales of justice in equal balance between the two sections. This all 
fair-minded men must applaud. For myself, I ask nothing more, and 
will accept nothing less. 

A word more, Mr. President, and I have done. In passing the Kansas 
bill, Congress, in my opinion, committed one error ; and out of that error 
has grown much of the confusion and discord which have ever since 
distracted the inhabitants of the territory. It was just to repeal the 
Missouri restriction ; but it was unwise to leave the inhabitants of the 
territory in doubt as to the extent of their real powers. It was a griev- 
ous error not to have defined precisely what we meant " by leaving the 
people of the territory perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way." The report of the committee, and the 
bill under consideration, propose to correct that error. The report 
defines with accuracy and precision what are the rights of the territory 
during its territorial existence ; and the bill proposes to aulliorize the 
legislatui'e of the territory to provide by law for the election of delegates 
by the people, and the assembling of a convention to form a constitution 
and state government, preparatory to their admission into the Union on 
an equal footing with the original states, so soon as it shall appear, by a 
census to be taken under the direction of the governor, by the authority 
of the legislature, that the territory contains ninety-three thousand four 
hundred and twenty inhabitants — that being the number required by the 
present ratio of representation for a member of Congress." 

This is as it should be. It points to the time and circumstances under 
which Kansas may seek and receive admission into the Union as a state. 
When she seeks admission according to the terms prescribed in this bill, 
she shall receive it if my vote will give it to her, and I will not inquire 
whether her constitution sanctions or excludes slavery. 

I have always believed, and now declare, that whenever a census has 
been fairly taken, and the result has shown that a territory has the fede- 
ral population to entitle it to one representative in Congress, it has the 
right to form a republican constitution, and ask admission into the Union 
as a state ; and I now give notice to all whom it may concern, that I 
will vote in all cases for the admission of states thus applying, without 



464 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

a why or a wherefore, and without stopping to inquire whether their 
proposed constitutions recognise or prohibit slavery. 

If this bill passes, as I sincerely trust it may, we shall have established 
a precedent that will stand, I hope, as a landmark and a guide in all 
time to come. It will fix a period at which the people of a territory, 
acting within the purview of the Constitution, in obedience to the 
authority of Congress rightfully exercised, and with the entire consent 
of all the people, may peaceably assemble and decide the slavery ques- 
tion for themselves. When they have thus decided, there will doubtless 
be a universal acquiescence. Passion will subside ; reason will resume 
her dominion ; there will be no further cause of bickering ; and we shall 
say with one voice, to all the territories, " Go thou and do likewise." 



On the 12th of May, 1856, Mr. Brown continued the debate, in reply 
to Mr. Cass, as follows : — 

I have a few words to say in reference to the last allusion of the dis- 
tinguished senator from Michigan to a speech which I made the other 
day. He has alluded to what I said in reference to two distinguished 
gentlemen. Whatever deduction I drew from the language employed by 
either of them was based entirely on the papers which were before me. 
So far as relates to the senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], he is a 
member of the body, and can say, for himself, whether or not I drew 
correct conclusions from his language, and therefore I shall not com- 
ment on that point. The President of the United States, however, is 
not a member of the body, and has no opportunity of being heard here ; 
and, so far as I deduced a conclusion from his language, it may be pro- 
per that I should at this stage of the discussion introduce a word of 
explanation. 

I quoted a solitary sentence from the late annual message of the Pre- 
sident to Congress, and from the language employed in that sentence 
did not draw a conclusion, but put my case hypothetically. I said, 
"If he means so and so, I concur with him fully." I did not say that 
I concurred with the President, because I did not feel quite sure that I 
understood him as he desired to be understood. He said in his message 
that the country had been awakened to a perception of the " constitu- 
tional principle" — mark you, sir, "constitutional principle" — of leaving 
the people of existing and incipient states to regulate the slavery ques- 
tion for themselves. 

I directed attention to the words "incipient state," and I desired to 
know their meaning. I said that if, by an incipient state, the President 
means a territory, with population sufficient to entitle it to one repre- 
sentative in Congress, in the act of forming a state constitution prepara- 
tory to admission into the Union as a state, I concurred with him. I 
did not state the other side of the proposition ; I now understand the 
senator from Michigan as speaking by authority — 

Mr. Cass. Not at all. I have merely quoted from the message. I 
have never passed a word with the President on the subject in my life. 

Mr. Brown. Then let me ask, does my friend from Michigan under- 
stand him to mean that a territory at any time before or after its organi- 
zation is an incipient state, and has the right, as such, to settle the 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 465 

slavery question for itself? Does he understand the President as so 



meaning 



Mr. Cass. The clause which I quoted does not use the phrase " in- 
cipient state" at all, but speaks of territories generally. 

Mr. Brown. The clause which I read contained that expression, and 
I -commented on that only. I understood it, as I am willing now to 
understandit, and as I hope the President meant to have it understood, 
that an incipient state is a territory in the act of forming a state consti- 
tution. If the President had meant a territory, he would have used the 
word territory, and not spoken of an incipient state. What I understand 
by an " incipient state"— what I am willing to understand, and what I 
hope the President meant when he employed the term, is a territory, 
with sufficient population to entitle her to one representative, in the act 
of forming a state constitution, preparatory to becoming a state. I said 
that such an incipient state had the right to settle the slavery question 
for itself, and when it settled it I would abide by the settlement, whether 
for me or against me. I am free to say, however, and I do say, that 
if by an incipient state we are to understand, as being meant, a territory 
without organization, or a territory with organization, but with not 
sufficient population to entitle her to one representative in Congress, and 
that such a territory has the power to settle the slavery question, or any 
other question of state right, or any question which does not pertain 
exclusively to the police of the territory, I wholly and entirely dissent 
from the proposition, whether it comes from the President, from my dis- 
tinguished friend from Michigan, or from any other quarter. 

Mr. Cass. I am not going to argue the point ; I have not the slight- 
est disposition to do so. I only desired to correct what I supposed to 
be a misapprehension of my honorable friend. As to the distinguished 
chairman of the Committee on Territories, I have already put him°rifht ; 
and now I will again read the words of the President — " the true prin- 
ciple of leaving each state and territory to regulate its own laws of labor, 
according to its own sense of right." I will merely observe, in addition' 
that if the President did not mean, that the people of a territory ought 
to possess this power, the language he uses is— to say the least of it- 
very unfortunate ; and, if by the expression " incipient state,"— to which 
the senator refers, and which, I suppose, is intended to be descriptive 
of the territorial condition— is meant, as the senator suggests, the con- 
dition of one of those communities in the act of forming a state consti- 
tution, and becoming a state, it really seems to me very unnecessary to 
make the period of such an act— perhaps five or six months— a subject 
of special consideration ; one of the divisions of the exercise of this 
power. It is not worth it. 

Mr. Brown. It may be unnecessary to make the point ; but it is 
always right to save a principle. I can see that, in a particular con- 
tingency, the point may become very important. The principle ouc^ht 
to be preserved, whether it is called into practical operation or not. ^ 

There is yet another point in which this question is to be viewed. 
Is a territory not yet organized an incipient state ? For myself, I am 
free to say that, in my opinion, an unorganized community does not rise 
to the dignity of a territory, much less to the dignity of a state of any 
kind. I know we used to speak of the territories of California, of Utah, 
and of New Mexico, before we had given them governments at all ; but 



466 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

that was a loose mode of expression. Is it meant that such a territory 
may exclude slavery ? 

Then, there is another state of territorial existence. It is the period 
that intervenes between the organization of a particular territory into a 
political society, and its admission into the Union as a state. For in- 
stance, we have now Minnesota, Utah, and New Mexico, organized pDli- 
tical communities. Formerly there was the territory of Michigan. It 
was, I believe, seventeen years after she was organized into a territory 
before she was admitted into the Union. 
Mr. Cass. Thirty years. 

Mr. Brown. I hold, free from all other embarrassing questions, 
taking Michigan as an example, that the people of that territory at no 
time from the passage of the act organizing them into a territory to the 
period when a convention assembled to form a state constitution, had 
the right to settle the slavery question for themselves. During the 
whole thirty years this right was in abeyance. That is my position. I 
state it frankly. If the President means to assert that the people then 
had this right, as an inherent or constitutional prerogative, I simply 
say that I dissent from his conclusion. I do not quarrel with anybody 
about it, but I do not believe in such doctrines. 

Mr. Cass. The honorable senator puts me in a wrong position. I 
think the same ground was taken six or seven years ago. I never con- 
tended that the people of a territory had the right to legishate on the 
subject of slavery before they had a recognised government ; 1 never 
dreamed of it. They have no right in such a condition to pass any laws ; 
but, as I said in the California case, they have a right, if Congress 
unnecessarily delays action so that there is danger to the internal peace 
of the country — they have a right by the laws of God and man to form 
a government for themselves, and until there is a regularly organized 
government. They have no power to legislate upon this or upon any 
other subject. 

Mr. Brown. My friend from Michigan says that, up to the time 
when you give them a government by act of Congress, he does not con- 
tend that they have a right to interfere with slavery ; but, when you 
cf'we them a government, I understand him to assert they have the right. 
Now, from whom do they derive their right ? If they get it from God 
Almighty, why do they not have it before they receive a government 
from Congress as well as afterwards? [Laughter.] 

Mr. Cass. Gentlemen need not laugh so soon ; I have a very simple 
answer to make. I have said that there is no government legally speaking 
until you have organized one. When you give it to them, the right of 
legislation attaches, and is brought into exercise. It will not do to refer 
to'^God Almighty or to any other power; the question is, what rights 
have they after you organize them ? You organize a legislature in the 
territory ; that legislature, then, has power of legislation. Where do 
they get it from ? They get it through the act of Congress ; but upon 
what subjects they shall exercise their powers of legislation, after they 
have org'anized, is a diiferent question. I believe it is a question which 
we cannot control. The moment you authorize them as a legislature to 
legislate, they have rights. I have not contended that God Almighty 
gave them a right to pass laws before a government was organized ; but 
I do contend that nature gives them rights which they can enforce if 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 467 

you put them in danger of anarchy, -without law or civil government. 
I suppose the senator will not deny, that men have certain rights, given 
by God, which none but tyrants can take away. 

Mr. Brown. Well, sir, I do not feel disposed to pursue this matter, 
as I perceive that my friend from Michigan and myself will never be 
able to agree upon the question. 



On the 26th of August, 1856, Mr. Brown again addressed the Senate 
as follows : — 

AVhen this section was moved as an amendment to the last Kansas 
bill, reported from the Committee on Territories, I was one of three who 
voted against it. I was opposed to it then; I am opposed to it now; 
and mean to vote against it in any form in which it can be presented. 
When we passed the original Kansas act, we declared to all the world 
that the people of the territories had the right to make laws for them- 
selves, subject only to the limitations of the Constitution. When Ave 
were asked what is meant by the limitations of the Constitution, and 
who is to determine what are those limitations, we answered on all sides 
that is a question to be determined by the courts. Never once by any 
living man was it asserted that Congress was to be the judge as to what 
the limitations of the Constitution were. Now, gentlemen come in and 
tell us that because, in their judgment, the laws of Kansas do not con- 
form to the Constitution, we are called upon, and needs must obey the 
call, to overturn those laws. 

Now, sir, I do not pretend to say that I would vote for such laws. I 
would not. I do not pretend to say that I approve of the laws as they 
stand. I do not approve of them. What I contend for, is simply that 
that is none of my business. The people of Kansas have passed those 
laws. If any portion of the citizens there are dissatisfied with them, 
they have precisely the same remedy which you and I, if we had gone 
to the territory, would have had if laws had been passed obnoxious to 
us. They have their right to appeal to the Supreme Court ; and if that 
right is not amply secured by the present legislation of the country, I 
am ready to secure it in the amplest manner possible. I stand prepared 
to guaranty any sort of appeal which the people of Kansas, or any por- 
tion of them, may desire to prosecute. I would even go to the extent 
of putting these appeal cases at the head of the docket and requiring the 
Supreme Court to hear and determine them in advance of all other 
cases ; but I am not willing, and will not, on my responsibility as a legis- 
lator, interpose with a declaration that these laws are unconstitutional, 
and that, therefore, I am not only called upon, but imperatively bound, 
to blot them from the statute-book. The senator from California says 
these laws are disgraceful to the age in which we live, and that he is 
ready to wipe them from the statute-book. Sir, if the Wilmot proviso 
had been passed, if they had laws excluding slavery from the territory, 
I should have regarded such laws as unconstitutional ; but if I had come 
here and asked senators to help me to repeal such legislation, would 
they have done it ? Would they not have told me, " according to the 
original bill you are remitted to the courts for your remedy ; if any con- 
stitutional right of yours has been invaded, appeal to the courts ; seek 
your remedy there, and if you obtain it, we acquiesce ; if you fail, you 



4C8 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

must submit." That measure of justice which you would mete out to 
me or my people, mete out to others and their people. That measure of 
justice which you would mete out to the South, mete out to the North, 
and then there will be no just ground of complaint anywhere. I ask 
you whether you are going to say to the Southern States, "if the legis- 
lation be against you, you must abide by it until you can have overturned 
it in court ;" and to the people of the Northern States, " if the legislation 
be against your prejudices or your principles, you have but to appeal to 
Congress, and Congress will set the matter right for you?" 

Sir, I regard this as flagrantly unjust — as one of the most unjust 
propositions, all things considered, that has ever been brought before 
this body. It is not only yielding to a wild spirit which is threatening 
to overturn the institutions of the country, thereby encouraging that 
spirit to go on to still further aggression, but it is, in my judgment, a 
palpable, downright, outrageous disregard of the rights of one half of 
the Union. 

There is but one point, in my judgment, upon which this proceeding 
can be justified ; and that is the point taken by the Free-soil portion of 
this body. If they are right that this whole legislation is the work of 
usurpation and tyranny — if they are right in the supposition that persons 
thrust themselves into the territory and arbitrarily made laws under which 
they do not mean to live and under which they are not living, — then it 
is your duty to interpose and wipe all the laws from the statute-book ; 
not only those which are obnoxious, but those which would otherwise be 
acceptable, upon the broad ground that it was a usurpation and a tyranny. 
I hold that you have no right to discriminate. One senator rises and 
says, "this law is obnoxious to me," and forthwith the Senate blots it 
out. Another rises and says, "this is obnoxious to me," and you blot 
that out. And when you have blotted out enough to obtain a majority 
of the Senate, there you stop. There are still complaining senators, 
still senators, representatives from states, who say " there are other laws 
obnoxious." Why not listen to their complaints, and wipe out those laws 
also ? 

Sir, if I believed, with the senators on the other side of the chamber, 
tiiat unauthorized persons had made these laws, and now refused to live 
under them, I should go with the senator from Massachusetts, not only 
for blotting out the obnoxious portion, but all the other, and giving a 
new start to the government ; but I believe no such thing ; I have seen 
no evidence of it. I believe that the legislature which made those laws was 
as fair a legislature as ever represented so new a people anywhere. That 
there were irregularities in the election is true beyond all doubt. These 
irregularities happen in old, and well-settled, and well-organized com- 
munities. Can you expect more regularity in a territory, situated as 
Kansas is, than in a state ? It was the legislature of the territory. Some 
of its members doubtlessly were irregularly chosen, but it represented 
the people of Kansas, and it was their only representative. It passed 
these laws. The next election comes off in October — only a little more 
than a month from to-day. If the people of Kansas are not satisfied 
with these laws, let them repeal them, as a dissatisfied party in a state 
repeals their laws. What I maintain is, that you have no right to inter- 
fere. Under your grant to the territory, it had the same right to pass 
laws for itself which a state had to pass laws for itself. It has the same 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 469 

right to pass laws for itself which Massachusetts, or Virginia, or any 
other state, has to pass laws to govern people within their own limits. 
I dare say the gentlemen on the other side of the chamber think there 
are many statutes on the Virginia statute-book that are outrageous ; but 
would you call upon the Senate to wipe them out ? Would you call 
upon Congress to interfere ? Massachusetts complained of certain legis- 
lation of South Carolina, and the imprisonment of what she chose to call 
her colored citizens, but she never asked Congress to repeal the act of 
South Carolina. Why ? Because South Carolina had a right to pass 
outrageous laws, if she chose to do so, and govern her people by them. 
Congress had no business to interpose. 

Now, if the principle upon which you passed your Kansas bill was the 
correct principle, that the people had the right to pass such laws as they 
chose to pass, subject only to the limitations of the Constitution ; and 
if it was true, as you said, that the limitations of the Constitution were 
to be determined by the courts, and not by Congress, under what pre- 
tence do you bring this bill here, and ask for action upon it? The people 
have legislated ; you think they have legislated erroneously ; but there 
is no appeal but to the court to overturn their legislation. 

I do not care to pursue this subject. It opens a wide field for debate. 
It opens up all the principles on which the territories are governed. It 
involves all our ideas of the powers of government. I am not going to 
run off into this branch of the subject. I plant myself upon the contract 
which we entered into in passing the original Kansas bill. Sir, the 
people of the territory have no right to legislate for themselves, if you . 
exercise a supervisory control to overturn their legislation whenever you 
are dissatisfied with it. My venerable friend from Michigan maintained 
this morning, as he has always maintained, that the people have a right 
— I understand him to say it is a sovereign right of the people — to make 
laws for themselves ; but when they niiike the laws, and tliey do not 
meet the approbation of my friend from Michigan, he throws them over- 
board. 

Mr. Cass. I never said that. 

Mr. Brown. But you act it. i 

Mr Cass. I never acted it. 

Mr. Brown. Does not my friend from Michigan admit that the peo- 
ple of Kansas have a right to pass laws for themselves ? 

Mr. Cass. I am not going to discuss this matter, as I am rather a 
point of attack to-day. I wish to observe, that I maintain, as I have 
always done, that the people of Kansas have certain inalienable rights 
secured by the Constitution. I maintain that, in a territory, American 
citizens have no right to institute a government of themselves, unless 
driven to it by your neglect. I maintain that, when you do institute a 
government, they may then go on and exercise governmental powers, 
which powers they do not derive from you, but from the Constitution. 
You give them the means to exercise them. That has been my doctrine. 

Now, Mr. President, I am not going to touch the point of the honor- 
able senator from Mississippi, but merely to vindicate myself. I believe 
that the people of the territory of Kansas have the right to exercise 
their domestic privileges, if I may so term them, for themselves, and 
you have no right to interfere ; but I believe that if the Congress of the 
United States pass a law, they have the same right to see that that law 



X 



470 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

is faithfully executed which they had to pass it. Whether you derive 
your power from one clause of the Constitution or another to establish 
a territorial government, you have the same right to take care that that 
government is faithfully executed. Then, if the territorial legislature 
pass laws which are in the very face of the Constitution and in the face 
of your organic act, it is my opinion that Congress has a right to correct 
their error. 

Mr. Brown. I so understood my friend. I do not think there is 
any difference at all between his understanding of himself and my un- 
derstanding of his opinions. I am not quarrelling with him about it ; 
but my own mind is so obtuse that it fails or refuses to perceive the 
difference between the position of my friend as stated by himself and 
as stated by me. 

The people of the territory either have the right to make laws for 
themselves or they have not. If they have the right to do it, I maintain 
that you have no right to overturn their laws ; because, if, whenever 
they run counter to your views, and make laws which you do not 
approve, you have the right to overturn them, that very right, it appears 
to me, involves the other right of making the laws for them in the be- 
ginning. If you have the right to say that their laws are either good 
or bad, according to your judgment, and to be maintained or not main- 
tained, as you choose, it certainly embraces the inferior right of saying, 
in the beginning, what sort of laws they shall have. It would be a 
shorter way to tell them, in advance, " here are our notions of what 
laws you ought to have ; take them and be content." I do not know 
what becomes of squatter sovereignty, popular sovereignty, and all that. 
I When we act thus, it seems to me that all goes by the board. 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, MAY 6, 1856, ON THE SUBJECT OF INTERNAL IM- 
PROVEMENTS BY THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 

Mr. President : It seems to me that we of the Democratic faith have 
, gone sadly astray on this subject of internal improvements. We have 
either passed resolutions w.hich we do not understand, or having passed 
them we deliberately trample them under foot. It is high time, I think, 
that we strike those resolutions from the book of our principles, or else 
resolve to adhere to them. In 1848, when our venerable friend from 
Michigan was made the standard-bearer of the Democratic party, we 
resolved against a general system of internal improvements. The Whigs 
in my part of the country charged precisely what we have before us in 
the Senate to-day. They said, " You mean to have no general system 
of improvement, but you mean to have it in detail." When I was ap- 
pealed to I said, with that frankness which I trust has always been and 
always will be a part of my character, " We contemplate no such thing ; 
we are incapable of declaring against a general system which shall bear 
equally in its burdens upon all parts of the country, and which shall 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 471 

dispense its blessings on all parts of the country, and then go for a 
special system of legislation which shall benefit onQ section at the ex- 
pense of another." 

I believed then, that my party was sincere on this question, and that, 
in declaring against a general system, it declared against the system in 
the aggregate and in detail. It seems, however, that I am to learn from 
the Senate now a different lesson. Individual members of the party — 
I do not say that it is the action of the party in the aggregate — indi- 
viduals representing its interests and the interests of the country here, 
do support these measures of special legislation. I am free to say now, 
as I have said at home, that, if we are to have internal improvements at 
all by the general government, I am for a general system — a system 
which shall dispense its blessings alike on every section, and the burdens 
of which shall be borne equally by all parts of the Union. I am opposed 
to sectional legislation, to class legislation, to legislation for the benefit 
of particular neighborhoods, states, or sections of the confederacy. 

Two years ago we passed a bill distributing about $5,000,000 of the 
public money among the several states for the improvement of rivers 
and harbors. We sent it to the President of the United States ; and 
whatever other faults may be found with him, it stands, in my judgment, 
to his eternal credit that he vetoed that bill. Now, sir, what have we 
here ? The items of that bill are taken up, one by one, and each is 
incorporated into a separate bill. That which he could not gulp down 
at one draught, he is expected to take by piecemeal. You do not pro- 
pose to physic the President on the good old plan of the allopathists, 
but you approach him with your homeopathic doses, and you give them 
to him in infinitesimal parts, dividing them up as though you expected 
that, when he could not take the whole pill at once, he would take it at 
a thousand different swallows if it were divided. I do not know what he 
will do, but I know what he ought to do. When you send him the first 
of these infinitesimal parts, these homeopathic doses, he ought to treat 
it precisely as he did treat the whole dose, and throw it back upon you. 

If we are to have these improvements made at all by the money of 
the federal government, I say again, let us have a system. When we 
declared as a great party against a general system of internal improve- 
ments, I understood that we were declaring against it in the aggregate ; 
and as the major always includes the minor, when we declared against 
the greater evil, I supposed that we declared against all the little evils 
which lay beneath it. As a member of the Democratic party, speakino- 
what I conceived to be its interests, maintaining what I believed to be 
its principles, I repelled the imputation, that while we were 6pposcd to 
a general system of internal improvements we were for doing the same 
thing in detail. 

Sir, this must stop. You must either cease to pass these bills, or 
strike opposition to internal improvements from the platform of your 
party. This kind of cheatery and humbuggery on the country cannot 
be long tolerated. When you say that you cannot improve rivers and 
harbors — that it is against the principles of the party to do so, and then 
take up a harbor in this state, and a river somewhere else, and go on 
scattering your improvements all over the Union, taxing one man's con- 
stituents for the benefit of another's, you cannot expect the people to 
believe that you are acting fairly. Such an idea may pass current here ; 



472 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

but when you get out before the straight-forward, the honest-hearted, 
the wool-hatted, and homespun-breeched farmers of the country, they 
will not understand it. They will say that there is an attempt among 
the politicians to cheat them on this question. 

Mr. PuGH. Allow me to say to my friend that he will not find " rivers 
and harbors" in the platform. 

Mr. Brown. " Rivers and harbors" is not there, but " a system of 
internal improvements" is there ; and in the name of all that is righteous 
and just, is not this a part of that system ? Why, sir, I was talking to a 
friend the other day on the subject of the Pacific Railroad, and he under- 
took to prove its constitutionality to me in a new way. He asked me, 
" Do you not admit that we have the right to open a wagon-road if we 
find it necessary for military purposes?" After some hesitation, I 
admitted that it was possible we might do it. " Well," said he, " if you 
have a right to cut down trees for that purpose, have you not a right to 
smooth over the service of the ground ?" I thought that was reasonable. 
"Then," said he, "if you can smooth the surface of the ground, can 
you not dig it down to a level where it is a little too high in one place, 
and pile it up where it is a little too low in another?" It seemed to be 
possible that we might do it, "Now," said he, " if you come to a swampy 
place, can you not lay a stick of wood across it and make a causeway, 
so that wagons can pass over it?" "Perhaps you can," I responded. 
" Then, if you can do that — if you can lay down sticks of wood in swampy 
places — can you not lay them down in places which are not swampy ; 
and if it be necessary, can you not put down the wood close together, 
two and a half feet or three feet apart, and when you get the timbers 
down, can you not lay iron rails across them, if that be necessary to keep 
them together ; and when you get them down can you not run a wagon 
upon them, drawn by steam, just as well as a wagon drawn by horses ?" 
I found that he was making me admit myself clear out of court — that 
he was fixing down a Pacific Railroad on me, starting with a plain little 
wagon road for military purposes. Thus we commence in these matters. 
Some little scheme is started by which you improve a particular harbor, 
because there is a great deal of shipping there, and then you assimilate 
something else to that, and something else again to that. Thus you go 
on, deducing one conclusion from another, until you arrive at the point 
to which you have resolved that you would never go, violating all your 
principles. 

Sir, we have got to sea upon this subject ; we have broken our rud- 

, der ; we have lost our compass ; the pilot is overboard ; and the ship is 
at the mercy of the winds and the waves. It is high time that we got 
to a harbor — one not made by men by appropriations from the treasury, 
but one made by God Almighty. 

I trust that we shall have a test vote on this question. I know of no 
better occasion on which to have a direct, up-and-down, straight-out test 
vote, and see how we stand. The Democratic Convention is soon to 

^ assemble ; and if we, as a party, do not mean to stand up against inter- 
nal improvements by the money of the federal government, let us say 
so like men. I am opposed to these appropriations, and I have been 
from the beginning, and as an individual I expect to remain so ; but I 
desire to know where I am to stand as a party man. I do not want to 
go home and be humbugging my constituents with the idea that my 



"o 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 473 

party is opposed to internal improvements when it is not. If we are 
opposed to them let us say so, and stand by our declarations. If, as a 
party, we mean to give up our position, let us do it at once and be done 
with it. Of all parties in the world the Democratic party is the last 
that ought to practise humbuggery. It never has done it upon any 
question, and ought not to do it upon this. Let us have an open, plain, 
straightforward, honest course to pursue on the subject of internal im- 
provements, as on all others. If we find that we do not agree — that it 
is not a sound principle, let us abandon it openly. 

My constituents are opposed to these appropriations on principle. 
They are opposed to them on interest. They have been taught to be- 
lieve that they are wrong — that they lead to monstrous abuses, to enor- 
mous corruption, and to a prodigal waste of the public money. But, 
sir, if we are to make these appropriations — if they are to become a 
part of the permanent policy of the government, let us all understand 
it, and let us have a fair start. If there is to be a scramble for the 
public treasury of the country, I want to know it ; I want my state, 
which contributed its proportion to the national treasury, to have a fair 
share in the division when it comes to be divided out. In the bill which 
the President vetoed two years ago I believe there was a small appro- 
priation of $5000 to remove the bar at the mouth of the Pascagoula 
river. I suppose the sum was so small that my friend from Michio-an, 
and the other members of the committee, overlooked it this year, and 
reported no bill for it. It is a matter of very little consequence. I 
presented it here at a late hour one night, because I knew that it was 
infinitely more meritorious than a great many appropriations in the bill. 
Sir, you may talk about your harbors, but the best harbor on your 
Atlantic and Gulf coast is in the state of Mississippi, where you have 
from seventeen and a half to nineteen feet of water — where there has 
never been a dredging machine placed — where there has never been one 
sixpence of money appropriated for the purposes of improvement. That 
is a harbor in which the whole British fleet in the war of 1812 and 1815 
rode with safety during the winter preceding the battle of the 8th of 
January, 1815. We have asked for no money from the national treasury 
to improve it. ^ We have been standing on the principle of opposition to 
these appropriations. We have failed to build up a city there ; our 
commerce has languished ; our agriculture to some extent has languished, 
simply because we opposed these measures on principle, even to our own 
disadvantage. If this opposition is to be abandoned, I desire to have 
the harbors in my state improved. 

We have rivers penetrating the state which are not improved. Our 
agriculture^ languishes in consequence. We have not asked for your 
bounty to improve them, because we understood that that party with 
which my state has always acted was opposed to it ; but if you are going 
to depart from your principle, if you are going to abandon it, let us 
understand you, so that all of us may have an equal and a fair chance. 
I shall want an appropriation to improve the harbor at Cat Island and 
at Pascagoula. I shall want to improve the navigation of the magnifi- 
cent Pearl, of the Yazoo, and of other rivers penetrating my state. I 
have asked for no such appropriations, because I have been standing on 
a principle. _ If, however, we are simply opposed to a general system 
of internal improvements, and can make any amount of them in detail. 



474 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

I shall bring in my part of the detail. If we can improve this harbor 
and that, this river and that, in other states, I shall expect you to vote 
appropriations to improve harbors and rivers in my state ; but I desire 
to know where we stand? 



On the 30th of July, 1856, Mr. Brown again spoke on the same sub- 
ject as follows : — 

Mr. President, I have taken very little part in the discussion of these 
bills, contenting myself, as regularly as they came up, with recording 
myself against them ; but, since the discussion has taken the turn it has 
within the last few minutes, I feel not only justified, but to some extent 
called upon, to express my concurrence, to a very great extent, in the 
views so ably expressed by the honorable senator from Georgia. 

I do believe (and what I believe I am not afraid to say in the Senate 
or anywhere else) that these appropriations have a corrupting tendency 
on the politics of the country. I do not mean to say, nor did I under- 
stand the senator from Georgia as saying, that they corrupt individual 
senators ; but upon what principle do all these appropriations proceed ? 
If Michigan gets no more than she pays into the treasury, why does she 
seek these appropriations at all ? If she pays in $300,000 and only 
gets $300,000 back, why does she ask for it ? If no other state gets 
back any more than she contributes to the national treasury, if there 
were no inequality in these appropriations, I undertake to say they would 
not be sought for. 

Mr. PuGH. Does the senator from Mississippi pretend that the appro- 
priation made to the state of Ohio equals her taxation ? Does he pre- 
tend it? 

Mr. Brown. I pretend to say that, in all the amounts which have 
been appropriated by these several bills, not one solitary sixpence has 
been appropriated for the great agricultural state of Mississippi. Why ? 
Because, with our notions of our constitutional obligation, we could not 
ask for it, and the committee say they cannot give it to us. You tax us 
without our asking to be taxed. You levy duties and get the money 
into the treasury without our consent, and even against our protesta- 
tions ; but when you come to paying it out, you take it all to yourselves, 
and say you cannot give us any because we do not ask for it. If our 
will is to be consulted in appropriating the money, I beg gentlemen to 
consider our will when they come to raising the money. If you cannot 
' make appropriations for us until we ask for them, do not lay tribute 
upon us until we ask it. 

Mr. President, if it were possible to distribute this money among the 
states, in the exact proportion in which it is paid into the treasury of 
the nation, not a solitary one of these bills would pass ; there would cease 
to be an effort to pass them through Congress. They are urged upon us 
k because more is obtained than is contributed — because it is a tribute 
levied upon the labor and wealth of one part of the country for the 
benefit of the other, and, I think, no more worthy parts of the country. 
Now, sir, we have harbors in our state ; we have rivers in our state. 
For certain improvements upon the southern coast of the state which I 
have the honor to represent, items were inserted in the general bill 
which was vetoed by the President ; and, when members of the com- 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 475 

mittee were searching out the various items for the lake shores, it could 
not have escaped their attention that there were items there for the 
benefit of the shores of Mississippi — one item for the improvement of 
the mouth of the Pascagoula river — a river I dare say quite as important 
to the commerce of the country as many of those little points on the 
northern lakes ; yet it was entirely overlooked. Then there was the 
proposition to purchase a pass lying between New Orleans and Mobile, 
which, in my opinion, was more constitutional than any other item in 
the bill; and why? The government pays annually $10,000 for the 
privilege of running its mail-boats through that pass. It is a pass be- 
longing to a private person — his individual property ; and the govern- 
ment has to use it ; private commercial men have to use it ; all the 
shipping that passes between those two important southern commercial 
points goes through that pass, or else outside the island, where vessels 
of a smaller class, especially steamers, are exceedingly insecure. For 
the privilege of going through them, I repeat again, the government 
pays $10,000 annually. As incidental to the post ofiice power, I think 
the appropriation might be made. The committee seem not to have 
thought so. They have reported no item — no bill for it ; but have over- 
looked the matter entirely. Why ? The senator from Michigan [Mr. 
Stuart] says, and other members of the committee say, because the 
members from Mississippi did not ask for it. Too much respect, I beg 
leave to say, is given to our constitutional scruples when you come to 
appropriate money, and too little when you come to levy taxes. 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 

SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 

DECEMBER 22, 1856. 

The Senate having under consideration the motion of Mr. Rusk to refer so much of 
the President's message as relates to foreign affairs to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations — Mr. Brown said : — 

Mr. President : When the President's message came into the Senate, 
and was read by the secretary, the first proceeding that followed was 
the rising of the senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Hale] to make a 
violent attack on the President and on the sentiments of his message. He 
based that attack chiefly on the ground that the President had intimated 
a purpose in certain quarters to attack slavery in the states. This 
speech of the senator from New Hampshire was quickly followed by 
speeches of a similar character from the senator from New York [Mr. 
Seward], and others on that side of the chamber who sympathize with 
them. These assaults have fallen here as they will fall elsewhere — harm- 
less shafts. They have inflicted no injury on the President, and they 
will inflict none on the great cause which he so manfully defended. 

While assailing the President in coarse and unseemly phrase, these 
gentlemen have not failed to cover their own positions. In all they 
have said, from the hour that the message was read to this, the most 



476 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

casual observer will not have failed to perceive that, on some account, 
their tactics have been changed. The bold and defiant air of the con- 
quering hero has given place to the subdued manner of defeated soldiers. 
Senators now read us long speeches, indignantly denying what I had 
supposed, up to within the last few days, was an admitted proposition 
everywhere, to wit : that when the proper time came, slavery was to be 
assaulted in the states. There seems, however, to have been a falling 
back from this position ; why, I certainly do not know, but I have a 
strong suspicion that gentlemen have found themselves, even at the 
north, in advance of public sentiment, and it has been found prudent at 
least to fall back on more tenable ground. 

While we have witnessed this exhibition in the Senate, elsewhere an 
exhibition not less remarkable has been going on. Politicians who cer- 
tainly express no open sympathy with these gentlemen, seem to have 
been advancing from a position which they occupied heretofore, and 
taking one in closer proximity to the gentlemen on the other side of the 
chamber. My reading of these counter-movements, the falling back of 
the one party and the advancing of the other, is this : that they mean 
for the time being to camp in sight of each other, and during the next 
four years to make forays on joint account against the National Democ- 
racy ; and when the presidential contest of 1860 comes on, they will go 
into battle under the same leader, and fight under banners so nearly 
alike that a soldier belonging under one being found fighting under the 
other, will subject himself to no charge of desertion. 

I was not prepared at first for the indignant denials which we have 
heard from the other side of the chamber, that there was a purpose to 
assail slavery in the states. I was not, because at first I did not under- 
stand this change of tactics ; I had supposed that gentlemen were more 
than half inclined to have it known that such an attack was in contem- 
plation, and that at the proper time their purposes would be made mani- 
fest. I knew very well it had been quite the custom at all times when 
these purposes were directly charged on gentlemen, for them to throw 
them aside with a sort of " Oh no — no we don't — no such thing." But 
the burning indignation which has been lately manifested has struck me 
with surprise. My surprise was manifested in the beginning of this 
debate. I ventured to quote from memory certain passages from the 
speeches of gentlemen, manifesting as I then thought, and still think, 
purposes altogether different from those avowed in this debate. I spoke 
from memory alone ; but since then I have given more critical attention 
to the recorded speeches of gentlemen, and can now speak with more 
accuracy, and with greater confidence. I do not mean to say that 
senators deliberately disavow their real sentiments — that would violate 
the decorum of this body. But I will say that if they have never con- 
^ templated an attack on slavery in the states, they have been singularly 
unfortunate in the use of language. I intend to-day to call particular 
attention to certain expressions heretofore used by them in the discus- 
sion of this question. 

But before I do so, let me set not only myself right, but let me set 
those right for whom I speak. I recur very briefly to a speech delivered 
by myself on the 3Pth of January, 1850, and shall read two or three 
short sentences from that speech. The party with whom I acted at 
that day, like the party with whom I act now, had been accused of a 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 477 

direct and deliberate purpose to bring about such a state of public 
affairs as must necessarily result in a dissolution of the Union. Deny- 
ing that charge, speaking for myself, speaking for those who acted with 
me, speaking, as I then believed, and as I now believe, for the great 
mass of the southern people, I used this language : — 

" I repeat, we deprecate disunion. Devoted to the Constitution — reverencing the 
Union — holding in sacred remembrance the names, the deeds, and the glories of our 
common and illustrious ancestry — there is no ordinary ill to which we would not 
bow sooner than dissolve the political association of these states. If there was any 
point short of absolute ruin to ourselves and desolation to our country, at which 
these aggressive measures would certainly stop, we would say at once, go to that 
point and give us peace." 

So I say to-day, sir. Speaking for myself and for those in whose 
name I am authorized to speak, I declare before the Senate and the 
world, that this Union has nowhere more devoted friends than they and ' 
I. And when I have spoken for those for whom I am authorized by 
election to speak, I feel that I may safely go further and say that nine- 
teen-twentieths of the whole people of the Southern States agree with 
us. Point out any spot short of absolute ruin to ourselves, and desola- 
tion to our section of the country, and give us the guarantee that when 
you have gone to that point, these aggressive and perplexing measures, 
legislative and others, shall certainly cease, and w^e will say to you at 
once, go to that point. But, sir, I went on that occasion, as I do now, 
a step further ; I said : — 

" Does any man desire to know at what time, and for what cause, I would dissolve 
the Union ? 1 will tell him. At the first moment after you consummate your first act of 
aggression upon slave property, I would declare the Union dissolved ; and for this 
reason ; such an act, perpetrated after the warning we have given you, would evince 
a settled purpose to interpose your authority in the management of our domestic 
affairs, thus degrading us from our rightful position as equals to a state of depen- 
dence and subordination. Do not mistake me ; I do not say that such an act would, 
per se, justify disunion; I do not say that our exclusion from the territories would 
alone justify it; I do not say that the destruction of the slave trade in the District of 
Columbia, nor even its abolition here, nor yet the prohibition of the slave trade 
among the states, would justify it. It may be that not one, nor two, nor all of these 
combined, would justify disunion. These are but the initiative steps — they lead you 
on to the mastery over us, and you shall not take these steps." 

I meant then, Mr. President, to say what I say now, that no man in the 
South has ever taken the ground that the mere act of our exclusion from ? 
the territories would dissolve the Union, if that could be the end of agita- 
tion. No southern man has ever taken the ground, and no one takes it 
now, that the abolition of slavery in this district might not be sub- 
mitted to, if that was to be the end. But we have looked, and are 
looking for the day, and have a right, in consequence of the declara- 
tions constantly emanating from high quarters, to anticipate the hour ' 
when the whole northern free-soil phalanx will be turned loose in one 
mighty assault upon slavery in the states. I have taught my people, as 
I would teach them to-day, to prepare for this assault. Defend the out- 
posts. Yield not an inch of ground. It is better to die defending the 
door-sill than admit the enemy and then see the hearth-stone bathed in 
blood. 

On the occasion to which I have referred, I drew a picture of what 
must be our condition if these schemes of emancipation should ever be 
carried out. Then, as now, gentlemen denied that there was any inten- 



478 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

tion to interfere with slavery in the states ; then, as now, we had assur- 
ances of fraternal feelings on the part of our northern brothers. I 
replied then as I do now : — 

" You tell us, sir, there is no intention of pushing us to extremities like these. I 
do not doubt the sincerity of gentlemen who make this avowal. If there was fixed- 
ness in their positions, I would believe them — I would trust them. If members of 
Congress were to the political, what stars are to the planetary system, I would take 
their solemn, and, I hope, sincere declarations, and be satisfied. I should feel secure. 
But a few days, a brief space, and you will pass away, and your places will be filled 
by men more hostile than you, as you are more hostile than your predecessors, and 
the next who come after your successors will be more hostile than they." 

I then thought, as we all know now, that the abolition sentiment at 
the North was fearfully on the increase; that, bursting the fetters that 
bound it to a handful of despised fanatics, it was invading all ranks of 
society, and taking captive thousands and hundreds of thousands who a 
few years ago spurned it as a viper and shunned it as they would a 
pestilence. What have we not seen and heard ? Within the last few 
days we have heard sentiments avowed on this floor which, a few years 
ago, would have found no sponsor anywhere outside of an abolition con- 
vention. Now they are responded to by a large minority here, and by 
a much larger minority, if not indeed a majority, in the other house of 
Congress. We cannot close our eyes to the light that is before us. We 
have seen this party rise from a little, despised band, and grow stronger 
and stronger, until it marches in triumph through twelve northern states, 
and is defeated in the remaining four by a vote so close as to make our 
victory over it almost a defeat. Was I not right, then, in refusing to 
take the promises of these men ? Where are the men of that day ? 
Gone, sir, gone. Go to the other house, and you will find their places 
filled by the men whose coming I predicted five years ago. 

Mr. President, it is not my purpose to charge senators with falsehood, 
and certainly I shall not assume the privilege of counselling those 
opposed to me ; but there can be no harm in my saying to the free-soil 
portion of the Senate, your supporters at home do not believe you are 
sincere in declaring your opposition to any interference with slavery in 
the states. They know that, without such interference, there will never 
be one bondman less ; and whenever you convince them that you are 
sincere, they will turn you out, and send others here more hostile to 
slavery than you, as you are more hostile than those who went before you. 
And, to tell the truth, I think they will serve you right in turning you 
out. If you did not mean to attack slavery in the states, you ought not 
to have taught others to believe you did ; and this you did, as I shall 
now proceed to show. 

I take the first in age among you, as he is certainly first in talent and 
position, the senator from New York [Mr. Seward]. When the other 
day I had occasion to quote by memory from a very remarkable speech 
of that senator, he did not deny the accuracy of my quotation, but, as 
senators will recollect, he referred me to Redfield's edition of his 
speeches, and avowed his willingness to abide by anything found in 
those volumes. I called at the library and failed to obtain the books. 
Communicating that fact to the senator, I do him the justice in this 
public manner to say that he was so kind as to present me with a copy 
of his speeches, a volume of which I now hold in my hand. Unhke my 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 479 

friend from Tennessee [Mr. Jones], I mean to take these volumes home. 
I mean to show my constituents, from an authorized edition of the 
senator's speeches, how much of venom against them and their institu- 
tions he has managed to compress within the narrow limits of a little 
volume like this, and if the Senate will indulge me, I will give a speci- 
men now, not only for the edification of the Senate, but for the infor- 
mation of all independent outsiders. In a speech delivered by the 
senator from New York, at Cleveland in 1848, he used this language, 
(I read from the third volume of Redfield's edition of the speeches of 
William H. Seward): — 

" ' What then !' you say, ' can nothing be done for freedom, because the public con- 
science is inert? Yes, much can be (lone — everything can be done. Slavery can 
be limited to its present bounds ; it can be ameliorated ; it can be, and must be, abo- 
lished ; and you and 1 can and must do it. The task is as simple and easy as its 
consummation vrill be beneficent and its rewards glorious." 

Sir, I asked the senator the other day, speaking from memory, as I 
ask him now, speaking from an authorized edition of his speeches, what 
did he mean by that language ? When addressing himself to a northern 
audience, he said "slavery can and must be abolished, and you and I 
can and must do it !" What did he mean, if he did not contemiDlate an 
attack upon slavery in the states ? Was it to be done by the concur- 
rence of the Southern States, as the senator would now persuade us he 
means to have it done if it shall be done at all ? If so, why did not the 
senator so declare it at the time ? Why, addressing an audience hostile 
to slavery, and whom he was persuading to become still more hostile, 
did he say " slavery can and must be abolished, and you and I can and 
must do it ?" Did the senator anticipate the concurrence of the South? 
Then why no allusion to the South ? Did he anticipate that the South 
was to do the work unaided by the North ? Then why appeal to the 
North ? But I go on with his speech : — 

" Wherein do the strength and security of slavery lie ? You answer that they lie 
in the Constitution of the United States, and the constitution and laws of all slave- 
holding states. Not at all. They lie in the erroneous sentiment of the American 
people. Constitutions and laws can no more rise above the virtue of the peo- 
ple than the limpid streain can climb above its native spring. Inculcate, then, the 
love of freedom and the equal rights of man under the paternal roof; see to it "that 
they are taught in the schools and in the churches ; reform your own code ; extend 
A cordial welcome to the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door, and ' 
defend him as you would your paternal gods ; correct your own error, that slavery 
has any constitutional guarantee which may not be released, and ought not to be 
relinquished." 

Here we have it, sir. The senator from New York meditates no 
attack on slavery in the states. Oh, no— not he ! He only desires the » 
northern people to understand how much they are at liberty to hate * 
slavery. Their indignation need not be restrained by any vulgar fancy 
that slavery is protected by the Constitution or the laws, either state or 
national. Their virtue can rise above the Constitution and the laws. 
The way is pointed out : inculcate the love of freedom— i\\^i is, hostility 
to slavery— under the paternal roof. Yes, teach your children to lisp 
with their earliest breath anathemas against the South. Teach it in the 
schools. Let the schoolmaster understand that he has a higher duty to 
perform than merely to educate his pupils. He may teach them to read 
and write, instruct them in geography, and point them to the great 



480 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

moral laws that govern the universe, and yet there is a higher duty for 
him to perform ; he must teach them to hate slavery, so that when they 
are grown up men and women, the Constitution and laws shall not rise 
above their virtue. The servant of God, as he ascends the sacred desk, 
is told by the senator from New York to preach, not Christ and him 
crucified, but freedom — freedom to all mankind, and freedom especially 
to the poor down-trodden slave. And yet the senator has no purpose 
now, or at any time to come, to attack slavery in the states. Then why 
this teaching ? Why teach children under the paternal roof to hate 
slavery ? Why teach it in the schools and in the churches ? Why 
reverse the scriptural admonition to love your neighbors as yourselves, 
and thus teach all mankind to hate the South and despise its people ? 
If there is no purpose to interfere with the South, its people, or its in- 
stitutions, to what end does the senator direct all this advice ? 

Mr. President, the senator gives us the key to his motive. He says, 
on page 302 of the volume in my hand, " Whenever" — yes, sir, mark it 
well — " whenever the public mind shall will the abolition of slavery, the 
way will open for it." There it is, sir — whenever the public mind shall 
will the abolition of slavery ; and then he says, in plain Saxon : " Pre- 
pare the public mind under the paternal roof — prepare it in the schools 
and in the churches — when it is ready the way will open for it." But 
the senator has no purpose to interfere with slavery in the states — 
good, easy man ! — he only wants to prove that the Constitution and 
laws cannot rise above the virtue of the people. Mr. President, I give 
the senator credit for all the talents he possesses, but he has no right to 
assume that all the rest of mankind are fools. 

" Say to slavery," says the senator, " when it shows its bond and de- 
mands the pound of flesh, that if it draws one drop of blood its life 
shall pay the forfeit." What does that mean? What is the bond here 
alluded to but the Federal Constitution ? When the master comes with 
that Constitution in one had, and the laws enacted in pursuance of it in 
the other, and demands the return of his fugitive slave, who perchance 
has taken shelter under the very roof of the senator from New York, 
that senator says, like Sliylock's judge, " Yes, I award you the return 
of the slave ; but I impose conditions — such conditions as must for ever 
render my judgment inoperative and void. You have a right, under the 
Constitution, to your slave; the law doth give it, and I award it; take 
your pound of flesh, but spill not one drop of blood ; take your slave, 
but be cautious that you touch not even the hem of the garments of 
freedom ; for if you do, your life shall pay the forfeit." Such, sir, are 
the teachings of the senator ; such his ethics ; such that moral law 
of the people over which the Constitution can no more climb than the 
stream can rise above its native spring ! 

But again : " Extend a cordial welcome to the fugitive who lays his 
weary limbs at your door, and defend him as you would your paternal 
gods." True, the Constitution declares that fugitives shall be delivered 
up ; but I tell you, says the senator, that " slavery has no constitutional 
guarantee that may not be released." Disobey the Constitution ; give 
a cordial welcome to the fugitive ; defend him as you would your pater- 
nal gods; strike down the master, and set the bondman free. The 
Constitution may sanction slavery — the Bible may tolerate it — God 
may have ordained it ; but what of all that ? We must have a higher 
law. 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 481 

If it shall be shown that the Constitution sanctions slavery, we will 
demand an anti-slavery Constitution ; if the Bible tolerates slavery, we • 
will demand an anti-slavery Bible ; let it be proven that God ordains 
slavery, and we will shriek for an anti-slavery God. Thus is the Con- 
stitution denounced, the Bible derided, and God insulted on his throne 
by men who impiously endeavor to prove what the Constitution, the 
Bible, and God himself deny — that a negro is the white man's equal. ' 
But there is no intention to interfere with slavery in the states. We 
mean to abolish it ; we mean to teach abolition in the schools and in the 
churches, and under the paternal roof; we must defend runaway ne 
groes as we would our paternal gods; we must correct our error that 
the Constitution gives any protection to slavery which we may not re- 
lease ; and above all, we must teach the people that their virtue is not 
to be overcome by the Constitution ; only let their minds be prepared 
for abolition, and the way will open. But we must not interfere with 
slavery in the states. Will the senator tell us what slavery it is he 
means to abolish, if it is not slavery in the states? Does he know of ' 
any slavery anywhere else but in the states ? 

We have had intimations that the enemies of domestic slavery expect 
their final triumph through the action of the Southern States — that by 
a sort of "moral suasion" the owners of slaves will be induced finally 
to give them up. On this precise point I shall have something to say 
presently. Before I proceed to that point, however, let me make a pass- 
ing allusion to the higher law doctrine of the senator from New York. 
From the first volume of Redfield's authorized edition of the senator's 
speeches I read the following : — 

"We hold no arbitrary authority over anything, whether acquired lawfully or 
seized by usurpation. The Constitution regulates our stewardship ; the Constitution 
devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. But 
THERE IS A HIGHER LAW THAN THE CONSTITUTION which regulates our authority over 
the domain." 

A higher law I The senator, by universal admission, has the honor, 
if it be an honor, of having first taught in the political schools of our 
country this doctrine of a higher law. I want to show how apt some of 
his scholars are. Some of the pupils of the distinguished senator from 
New York assembled in convention in the state of Ohio for the purpose 
of nominating a candidate for governor, and resolved as follows : — 

" Resolved, That we cannot respect, nor can we confide in, those ' lower law' doctors 
of divinity who hold human laws above the laws of God ; nor can we concur in their 
teachings, that the Divine law is subject to congressional compromise. 

" Resolved, That we hereby give it to be distinctly understood by this nation and 
the world that, as abolitionists, considering that the strength of our cause lies in its 
righteousness, and our hopes for it in our conformity to the laws of God, and our 
support for the rights of man, we owe to the Sovereign Ruler of ilie universe, as a 
proof of our allegiance to him in all our civil relations and officers, whether as 
friends, citizens, or as public functionaries, sworn to support the Constitution of the 
United States, to regard and treat the third clause of the instrument, whenever ap- 
plied in the case of a fugitive slave, as utterly null and voidi, and consequently ' 
as forming no part of the Constitution of the United States, whenever we are called 
upon or sworn to support it." 

There is the result of the senator's teachings. He uses the influence 

of his great name and his high position to declare, before the Senate 

and to the world, that there is a law higher than the Constitution. His 

pupils, taking up the doctrine, declare that, when they are sworn tosup- 

31 



482 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

port the Constitution, they are at liberty to treat as null and void that 
clause which requires the return of a fugitive slave. Whether the pupils 
understand precisely as the instructor intended to teach, it is not my 
business to determine. That is a duty which devolves on the senator him- 
self. It is sufficient for me to know that he has taught them to believe 
there is a law higher than the Constitution, and that they, following his 
teachings, repudiate the Constitution, and spurn the obligations of the 
oath that binds them to support it. One set of his admiring friends 
march right home to victory by planting their feet on the neck of the 
Constitution, and another part cry out for an anti-slavery Constitution, 
anti-slavery Bible, and anti-slavery God. 

But, sir, I have other speeches not contained in an authorized edition 
of the senator's works, but I suppose from the title page not less en- 
titled to credit. I read from a pamphlet entitled " The Dangers of Ex- 
tending Slavery, and the Contest and the Crisis ; two speeches of Wil- 
liam H. Seward, published by the Republican Association : the tenth 
English edition; Buell & Blanchard, printers, Washington, D. C." The 
speeches must have been published in very small editions, or have re- 
ceived great favor in certain quarters. Now, I beg to call attention to 
a few passages from the speech delivered at Albany, October 12, 1855. 

I do so for several reasons, and, among them, for this reason : I want 
to show how little was thought of the idea of moral suasion, of abolish- 
ing slavery through the consent of the masters, when this speech was 
made. This idea of moral suasion — of bringing up the owners of slaves 
to the great work of emancipation — was not thought of when this 
speech was delivered. The senator is too well acquainted with the 
springs of human action to suppose that he could ever induce slave- 
holders to adopt his ideas by language such as I shall now read : — 

" All agree that la every case, and throughout all hazards, aristocracy must be 
abhorred and avoided, and republican institutions must be defended and preserved. 

" Think it not strange or extravagant when I say that an aristocracy has already 
arisen here, and that it is already undermining the republic. An aristocracy could 
not arise in any country where there was no privileged class, and no special founda- 
tion on which such a class could permanently stand. On the contrary, every state, 
however republican its constitution may be, is sure to become an aristocracy, sooner or 
later, if it has a privileged class standing firmly on an enduring special foundation ; 
and if that class is continually growing stronger and stronger, and the unprivileged 
classes are continually growing weaker and weaker. 

" A privileged class has existed in this country from an early period of its settle- 
ment. Slaveholders constitute that class. They have special foundation on which to 
stand — namely, personal dominion over slaves." 

Was it by language such as this that the senator hoped to bring the 
slaveholders to the point of joining in his great scheme of emancipation ? 
Was there ever an attack more insidious, or one better calculated to bring 
; the slaveholder into discredit ? A little further on the senator exclaims : 
^' Oh, how blessed a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity !" 
He comes to bury Caesar, not to praise him. While he speaks of his 
brethren of the South, he teaches others to regard them as enemies. He 
says they are the enemies of liberty, already engaged in undermining 
the republic. 

The senator's audience, on the occasion referred to, were told plainly 
that the slaveholders of the South constituted a privileged class — an 
aristocracy — and that an aristocracy was dangerous to the existence of 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 483 

the republic Why did he thus teach, unless he meant to brincr this 
privileged class into reproach ? If there be in the South a privfle-ed 
class-an aristocracy, in the language of the senator-and that arist'ic- 
racy is dangerous to the existence of the republic, does the senator pro- 
pose no reraedyj Does he mean simply to complain of the existence 
ot the evil, without attempting, in any capacity whatever, to remedy 
tnat evil r He goes on : — "^ 

an'rl Fnrn^!"'* ''^ ^)t ^f «^"tionary age was adverse to that privileged class. America 
and Europe were firmly engaged then in prosecuting what was expected to he a 
speedy, complete, and universal ahoUtio a of African slavery." ^^P*-^'^'-! ^^^ ''^ a 

Here, again, the universal abolition of African slavery is spoken of 
as an act necessary to place the government in harmony with the spirit 
of the revo utionary age. Still there was no design to interfere with 
slaveryin the states. The great scheme of universal abolUion was to 
be earned out through the influence of moral suasion, and that influence 
was to be effectually exerted by calling the slaveholders a privilec^ed 
class, an aristocracy whose special privileges were dangerous to the^'re- 
pubhc, and the liberties of the people. 

" shame ! where is thy blush ?" 
See how the senator lays down one proposition after another, dove- 
tailing each into its predecessor in a manner to draw the pubHc mind 
to a particular conclusion, that conclusion being that by all the memo- 
ries of their revolutionary sires, by all their hopes of preserving repub- 
hcanism in this country, they are called upon to wage a ceaseless . 
unrelenting, and never-dying warfare on slavery whereve? it exists ; and 
yet the senator comes_ here to-day and says: "No; I indignantly k^pu- 
diate the idea that either I or my friends ever dreamed'' of aLilin^ 
slavery in the states." After going on through a long argument, which 
I have no time to read, nor the Senate pati^ence to heal-, the Senator 
says ; 1 read again from the Albany speech :— 

"I will only ask, in concluding this humiliating rehearsal, whether there is not 
m th.s favored country a privileged class ; whether^it does no stand on an endurW 
foundation ; whether ,t ,s not growing stronger and stronger, whHe the unpr^^^^^^^^^ 
class grows weaker and weaker; whether its further growth and extent would lot 
be not merely detnmental but dangerous ; and whether there Lan^ropnoarres 

„.„ ^f that has become at last so necessary is as easy to be made as it is 

necessary. r^eio/eoZe number of slaveholders is only three hundldaml m,thmLld 
-one hundredth part of the entire population of the country If Cou^/dd ttir A 

mll'jt^T'.'T'f'"''^- ''^""^''^'^ ^""^ dependants, they are w^o m flion !^Ee > 
fafteenth part of the American people." . j c iwu munons— one- 

.1. J.^^!' ''''9'' wt °^'^«*T^^' P"'P°^^ 0^ th^ senator in making these 
declarations ? Why does he proclaim that this privileged class in the 
South IS dangerous to republican institutions-that it exists there in 
violation of the great principle for which the revolutionary battles were 
fought, and that those who uphold it are only three hundred and fifty 
^ousand ? For what purpose, let me ask you, did the senator from 
New York present the case m this form to the mind of his audience at 

fxnkin . «n?T r^^'n' ""T^ 'P?^' ^^'^"'^^ ^ P-^^P^^^- He does not 
explain , and if he will not, I needs must be left to the resources of my 
own mind for an answer. -^ 

The senator knew that no chord in the heart of our people was so 



43 i ALBERT G. BROWN. 

easily touched, or responded so promptly, as that one which binds it 
to the memories of the Revolution, and he rightly concluded that our 
people everywhere, north and south, were deeply imbued with republi- 
can sentiments. If, then, he could persuade them that there was a little 
handful of three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders at the South, 
warring against the great principles established in our Revolution, and 
breaking down republican institutions in the country, why, then, the 
twenty-five millions who do not belong to this privileged class — to this 
aristocracy — would rise up, and WILL the abolition of slavery ; and then, 
in his own language, there being " a will, the ivay tvould open for it.'' 

It is not my business to explore the recesses of any man's heart ; but 
I apprehend the object of the senator in making the speech to which I 
have alluded, was to persuade the mighty North that it ought to will 
the abolition of slavery. He told them of its dangerous tendencies. He 
pointed to the feeble prop by which it is sustained. It is upheld, said 
he, by only three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders ; and you 
who are not slaveholders are more than twenty-five millions of people ; 
only have the will to overthrow this great monstrosity, and the way will 
immediately open to you ! Such, if not the language, is at least the 
teaching of the senator from New York ; and yet he comes to the Senate 
to-day to tell us he never contemplated, never counselled, and never 
believed anybody else contemplated, or counselled, an attack on slavery 
in the states ! 

But, Mr. President, there is a deeper meaning — a larger significance 
to this speech of the senator. There are three hundred and fifty thou- 
sand slaveholding aristocrats in the South, says the senator — men at 
war with liberty, and dangerous to the republic. They are only one in 
one hundred of the entire population ; or if you add, he says, " the 
children, relatives, and dependants, they are one in fifteen;" conse- 
quently fourteen parts out of every fifteen of the entire population have 
no interest in slavery. They are, as he seems to conclude, mere hewers 
of wood and drawers of water to the slaveholding aristocrats. 

These suggestions come from no friendly spirit, Mr. President. They 
open a wild field for speculation ; and if I did not feel there was a neces- 
sity for my being brief, I would ask the senator to join me in a ramble 
through that field. To him it is not a field of treasures, as he supposes. 
, If he expects, by appeals like these, to turn the hearts of the non-slave- 
holders of the South against slavery, he will miss his aim. They may 
have no pecuniary interest in slavery, but they have a social interest at 

* stake that is worth more to them than all the wealth of all the Indies. 
Suppose the senator shall succeed in his ideas of universal abolition — 
what is to be the social condition of the races in the South ? Can they 
live together in peace? No one pretends to think they can. Will the 
Avhite man be allowed to maintain his superiority there ? Let us examine 
this proposition. There are in my state about three hundred and fifty 

* thousand whites, and about an equal number of blacks. Suppose the 
neo'roes were all set free. What would be the immediate and necessary 
consequence ? A struggle for the supremacy would instantly ensue. 
White immigration to the state would cease of course. The whites 
already there Avould have but little motive to struggle in the mainte- 
nance of the unequal contest between the blacks and their millions of 
sympathizing friends in the free states. The consequence would be that 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 485 

the men of fortune would gather up their transferable property, and seek 
a home in some other country. The poor men — those of little means — 
the very men on whom the senator relies to aid him in carrying out his 
great scheme of emancipation, would alone be compelled to remain : 
their poverty, and not their will, would compel them to remain. In the 
course of a few years, with no one going to the state, and thousands on 
thousands leaving it in one constant stream, the present equilibrium 
between the races would be lost. In a few years, the disparity would 
probably be some three, four, or five to one in favor of the blacks. In 
this state of things, it is not difficult to see what would be the white 
man's condition. If he should be allowed to maintain his equality he 
might think himself fortunate ; superiority would be a thing not to be 
dreamed of. The negroes being vastly in the majority, would probably 
claim the ascendency in the social, and in all other circles. If the white 
man, reduced to such a condition, were allowed to marry his sons to 
negro wives, or his daughters to negro husbands, he might bless his 
stars. If the senator from New York expects the aid of non-slaveholders 
in the South in bringina- about this state of social relations, let me tell 
him he is greatly mistaken. If I had to take my choice to-day between >. 
an army of large slaveholders and an army of non-slaveholders to defend 
the institutions of the South, I would take the latter. The first would 
fight to defend their property, the last to maintain their social supe- 
riority; the one would see an outlet after defeat, the -other would see 
themselves degraded beloAV the level of the negroes, their sons married 
to negro wives, and their daughters consigned to the embraces of negro 
husbands. I tell the senator that his philosophy has failed — his fine- 
spun theories will all explode, when submitted to the test of the plain, 
common sense of the non-slaveholding population of the Southern States. 
The senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] was equally particular 
with the senator from New York, to assure us that he contemplated no 
attack on slavery in the states. Indeed he became somewhat indignant 
at the idea that any one should intimate that he had ever contemplated 
any such thing. I have no authorized edition of the senator's speeches ; 
and if I read him incorrectly, he is present, I am glad to see, and will 
no doubt correct me. The senator knows what the Anti-slavery party 
mean to do — I mean the Garrison and Wendell Phillips party. Did the 
senator from Massachusetts use this language : — 

" The Anil-slaver y party alone is too weak. They are few in numbers, though 
their policy, I believe, will yet be impressed upon the country, but the time is not ' 
yet." 

The senator, I repeat, knows who the Anti-slavery party are, and he 
knows their purposes. Did he use that language ? If he did, the infer- 
ence is irresistible that he believed in the soundness of the Anti-slavery 
theories, and was ready to embrace them at the right time. If he did 
not so believe, and was not so ready, why did he declare, " but the time 
is not yet?" 

Mr. Wilson. Will the senator allow me to make an explanation ? 

Mr. Brown. Certainly. 

Mr. Wilson. I beg leave to assure the senator from Mississippi that 
the object of my making that statement was not to refer to the Garrison 
abolitionists as the Anti-slavery men, or the radical or Gerrit Smith 
abolitionists ; but to speak of the Anti-slavery men of the country, whose 



486 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

sentiments were embodied in the Buffalo platform of 1848, and the Pitts- 
burgh platform of 1852. The doctrines of the Free-soil party were the 
doctrines to which I referred. I said that those who agreed in those 
platforms were in a small minority. I believed the sentiments embodied 
in those platforms were correct, and would yet be impressed on the 
country. Nothing in those platforms contemplates any action by the 
Congress of the United States, or any interference whatever with slavery 
in the slaveholding states in the Union. I never entertained the thought 
that we had that power, and I never proposed to usurp or exercise it. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President, the senator admits that he used the 
language, but avoids its force by saying, in effect, that it was addressed 
to parties other than those I have named. The language was aidressed 
to some one who was in advance of the senator ; and whether it was 
Garrison or Gerrit Smith, or some one of less ultra views, makes but 
little difference. It is the language of entreaty, addressed to some one 
imploring him not to go so fast. He says. Your sentiments are all right, 
but the time has not come for impressing them on the country. I sub- 
mit to the Senate how far any party must have gone when the senator 
from Massachusetts had to call on them to stop ; and I submit to the 
senator himself, whether he did not contemplate an advance movement 
when he said, " the time is not yet." 

The senator will pardon me if I say these are significant declarations ; 
and when coupled with remarks such as those I have quoted from the 
speeches of his friend from New York, they become too potential to be 
passed by in silence. 

Mr. Seward. Mr. President, I am interested very much in this 
argument of the honorable senator, and I think it is a very fair and 
senatorial mode of proceeding. I have not the least objection whatever 
to his analysis of the arguments and speeches which I have made. It 
is not my purpose to answer ; but I know the honorable senator is pro- 
ceeding in a manner which indicates what I might expect from him, 
fairness, I beg leave to say now, rather than at some other time in the 
debate, that I appeal to him, in the revision of his remarks, not to over- 
state, as I think he has erroneously done, disclaimers and denials which 
he assumes I have made here in this debate. On referring to the few 
remarks which I addressed to the Senate, on the first day that this 
question arose, he will see the precise extent to which I did go ; and I 
would not have him present me to the people of the country as denying 
or disclaiming anything more than I have actually done, and I know he 
does not wish it. I hope the honorable senator will excuse me for inter- 
rupting him on this particular point, as I have no wish to interfere with 
his argument. 

Mr. Brown. Certainly ; I do not wish, at this particular point, to 
review what I have said in regard to the senator from New York, my 
present dealing being with the senator from Massachusetts. I turn over 
to another production of the honorable senator. When I stated the other 
day that there had been a sort of billing and cooing, a sort of caressing, 
a sort of old-fashioned courtship, between certain gentlemen here and 
the ultra-Abolition party, the senator and his friends came forward and 
very indignantly denied it. Denials have come upon us thick and fast 
from that day to this, not only through the senators, but through their 
newspaper journals all over the country. I have had a perfect shower 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 487 

of newspapers rained on me from every part of the country, all indig- 
nantly denying that I was at all right in assuming that there was any 
sort of attempt to get up a political marriage between the Abolitionists 
of the Garrison and Wendell Phillips school and the Black Republican 
party. I ask the senator from Massachusetts whether he did not, on 
the 20th of June, 1855, address this letter to Wendell Phillips? I need 
not say to the Senate who Wendell Phillips is. It is sufficient to say 
that he " out-Herods Herod," he "out-Garrisons Garrison," he "out- 
Parkers Parker." He goes further than the renowned Beecher himself. 
This I understand to be the letter of the senator : — 

" I hope, my dear sir, that we shall all strive to unite and combine all the friends 
of freedom ; that we shall forget each other's faults and shortcomings in the past ; 
and all labor to secure that co-operation by which alone the slave is to be emanci- 
pated, and the domination of his master broken. Let us remember that more than 
three millions of bondmen, groaning under nameless woes, demand that we shall cease 
to reproach each other, and that we labor for their deliverance." 

Did the senator write that letter? 

Mr. Wilson. Will the senator allow me a word on that subject ? He 
has put a categorical question. I am ready to answer the question ; but 
I would like to put my own construction on that letter. 

Mr. Brown. Any construction the senator pleases. I cannot say 
that I will adopt his construction, but I will hear it. 

Mr. Wilson. Well, Mr, President, I received an invitation from 
Wendell Phillips to attend a meeting, and to address that meeting. I 
wrote that letter. 

Mr. Brown. So I thought. 

Mr. Wilson. I agree to every word of it now, as I did then ; and 
there is nothing in that letter inconsistent with anything I have uttered 
upon this floor. I am opposed to slavery. I am in favor of its abolition 
everywhere where I have the power. Mr. Phillips, as the senator says, 
takes extreme views. I difl'er from him altogether in regard to them. 
He is a gentleman of great talent and character — in my opinion the 
greatest living orator on this continent. I have heard no man in the 
country during the last twenty years — and I have heard the foremost 
orators of the country — that I consider his equal. 

My idea is this : I want all men who are opposed to slavery to take 
a moderate and reasonable position, to abandon the extreme notions 
which those men entertain, to oppose the extension of slavery, separate 
the federal government from its connection with it, banish the negro 
discussions that we are having in these halls, and leave slavery in the 
slave states, where the Constitution leaves it, to the care of the people 
of those several states. I believe that when that is done, the liberal, 
high-minded, just men of the South will, in their own time and in their 
own way, bring about a safe emancipation. That is my view of the 
matter. It was so then, and is so now. 

Mr. Brown. Well, Mr. President, the senator admits that he wrote 
the letter. My charge was, that there was an attempt, on the part of 
these Republican senators, to get up a political marriage with the Abo- 
litionists, and the denial was to that charge. The senator from Massa- 
chusetts denied the charge, and was at great pains, in his speech the 
other day, to complain that I had made certain remarks in reference to 
Garrison and his friends, and had coupled them with the senator and 



488 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

his friends ; in all of which he intended to discard the idea that there 
was any kind of aflfiliation or political association between the Republi- 
can senators here and these ultra- Abolitionists out of doors ; and yet, 
when I introduce a letter which comes precisely to the point, showing 
that the senator himself had addressed one of the extremest of these 
men, saying : " You and I ought to act together ; you and I must act 
together ; three millions of bondmen groan, and you and I must come to 
their deliverance ;" when I show that the senator addressed this appeal 
to the most ultra of the Abolitionists, the senator comes forward to 
palliate. But, sir, what becomes of his denial that he ever courted the 
support or co-operation of these people — 

Mr. Wilson. Will the senator allow me a word ? 

Mr. Brown. Yes, sir ; certainly. 

Mr. Wilson. I made the denial ; I make it now. The Garrison 
Abolitionists do not vote. I believe them to be sincerely opposed to 
slavery, but they do not vote. They have taken positions which, in ray 
judgment, are wrong. What I wished was this : to have the men who 
act with them abandon their extreme notions, and take a moderate posi- 
tion, and stand where we stand — upon a purely constitutional and 
national basis. 

Mr. Brown. Then, sir, why did the senator say to Mr. Phillips, 
" Let us all labor together to secure the co-operation by which alone 
the slave is to be emancipated, and the domination of his master 
broken ?" 

Mr. Wilson. I explained that. 

Mr. Brown. Is not that the precise point to which Phillips is fight- 
ing — to emancipate the slave and break the domination of his master ? 
Where ? In the states. Is there slavery anywhere else but in the states ? 
When you emancipate the slave, you must emancipate the slave in the 
states ; and when you break the domination of the master, there is no 
domination to be broken anywhere but in the states. Then, Avhen the 
senator said to Phillips, "Let us all labor together to this end," was he 
not inviting Phillips on to his own platform, or was he saying to Phillips, 
'' My dear Phillips, let me go on to your platform." [Laughter.] 

Mr. Wilson. Mr. President, I think the senator is entirely mistaken, 
and is pushing that point further than it can be legitimately carried. 
My idea is, and was then, that the way to break the domination of the 
master over the government of the country and over the slave is, so far 
as we are a nation, to prevent the extension or existence of slavery out- 
side of the slave states, and then to leave the matter with them to settle, 
because it is the only constitutional way, and the only way in which I 
believe it can ever be done peaceably. In my judgment, this federal 
government cannot interfere for the abolition of slavery in the states 
without endangering the safety of the country, and bringing about a 
state of affairs that will be detrimental to the interests of both master 
and slave. 

Mr. Brown. If that was the idea of the senator from Massachusetts 
when he wrote the letter, he is certainly the most unfortunate man that 
ever took up a pen to express an idea. While I certainly shall not 
undertake to say that the senator's interpretation of his own language 
is not the true interpretation, I do undertake to say, and appeal to 
the intelligence of the Senate and the world, whether any other man 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 489 

would put that interpretation on it. When the senator declared: "Three 
millions of bondmen, groaning under nameless woes, demand that we 
shall cease to reproach one another, and that we labor for their deliver- 
ance," he used language which would teach every man who read it to 
believe that he was ready for any scheme which looked to the emanci- > 
pation of the slaves in the states. There are no three millions of slaves 
anywhere else groaning under nameless woes, nor enjo^'^ing the highest 
degree of human felicity, or any intermediate state of misery or happi- 
ness between the two ; the only slaves on this continent to which the 
senator could have alluded, were the three millions of slaves in the 
states ; and when he said to Wendell Phillips : " You and I, your friends 
and my friends, must labor unceasingly for the deliverance of those 
three millions of bondmen," he must have meant — at least the human 
mind will conclude, in the absence of his own denial, that he meant — 
the slaves in the states. He says he did not so mean, and I am bound 
to believe him ; but I am sorry to trust his candor at the expense of his 
understanding. 

Mr. Wilson. Without interrupting the speaker too much, I wish to 
say that Mr. Phillips and Mr. Phillips's friends did not so understand it. 
They know my precise and exact position. The letter was probably 
hastily and carelessly written to a friend; but the construction the 
senator puts on it, no man in Massachusetts ever put on it. 

Mr. Brown. I expect the senator has been explaining it there as he , 
has here. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Wilson. The question was never raised there at all. 

Mr. Brown. When he wrote the letter to Wendell Phillips, the Abo- 
litionist no doubt expected the co-operation of the senator and his 
friends ; but when he became startled at his own position, and com- 
menced, as he is doing now, to fall back on what he considered to be a 
more impregnable position, I dare say Wendell Phillips said, " Well, my , 
dear Wilson, you have not spoken as candidly as I thought you did." 
Jf, however, the language had been left without explanation in speeches 
here or elsewhere, I venture to say Mr. Wendell Phillips, and all other 
men, would have put the same construction on it that I do. 

Mr. President, I have already noticed the speeches of the two sena- 
tors at greater length than I had intended. The material before me is 
not half exhausted; but if I go on I shall be compelled to overlook 
some of their associates — I have a word for each of them. The sena- 
tor from New York I regard as the very Ajax Telamon of his party ; 
and the senator from Massachusetts may, I think, be fairly considered 
their Jupiter Tonans. I had, therefore, to devote some time to them ; 
but I beg the others not to consider themselves slighted ; I will come to 
them after a while. 

I must, before leaving the senator from Massachusetts, even at the 
risk of being tedious, say a word in reply to the speech pronounced by 
him the other day. Almost in the outset of his speech he pronounced 
in measured, studied phrase, " those twin sisters of barbarism, slavery 
and polygamy." 

Mr. Wilson. That was a quotation. 

Mr. Brown. Well, sir, quotation or original thought, for what pur- 
pose was it introduced into the senator's speech ? If he means, as he 
says he does, to accomplish his ends by moral suasion, by finally raising 



490 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

up a party in the South to co-operate with him in the great work of 
overturning slavery, let me ask, are men pursuaded by this sort of de- 
nunciation ? Is the southern slaveholder to be persuaded by being told 
that he is the confrere of the citizens of Utah — that the man in Missis- 
sippi who owns his fifty slaves is as morally corrupt as he of Utah who 
has his fifty wives ? If the senator meant anything, he meant precisely 
that. If the senator expects to make converts by that species of preach- 
ing, he will have to preach to some other people than those whom I re- 
present. Let me say now to the senator and all who sympathize with 
him, that I love this Union ; those whom I have the honor here to re- 
present, and in whose name I speak to-day, love it ; but if we are to 
live together in peace, this sort of denunciation must cease. This species 
of reviling, these taunts, these insults levelled at every slaveholding 
family in fifteen states of the Union, must come to an end, or we can- 
not live together in peace and quietude. I say no more. 

The senator denies all association with Garrison, and politicians of 
that school; but when I allude to what Garrison said, the senator is 
quick to spring to his feet for the purpose of putting in a vindication. I 
am always quick, I hope, to vindicate my friends, but very slow to vindi- 
cate my enemies. If they have no sympathizing fi-iends here, they can 
send their vindication through some other channel than myself. But in 
the very act of vindicating his friend. Garrison, from the charges which 
I made, the senator admitted all that I said. My declaration was, that 
Garrison had declared, in the last canvass, that if he had a million of 
votes to dispose of, he would give them all to Fremont — of course I 
meant to say in the contest then going on ; in the contest as between 
Buchanan, Fillmore, and Fremont. I did not say that he preferred 
Fremont to all other men ; but that, as against the other two, he would 
give his million of votes for Fremont. My object was to show the bond 
of sympathy existing between the Republican senators here, and the 
Garrison, Fred. Douglas, and Wendell Phillips school elsewhere. I 
think I made my point clear at the time ; but, if I failed to do so then, 
I trust the senator appreciates it now. It was, and is, that such was 
Garrison's partiality, such the partiality of his extreme Abolition crew, 
that if they had millions of votes to give, they would, in that contest, 
give them all to the Republican candidate. Garrison would give a mil- 
lion of votes to Fremont, and, in return, Fremont would no doubt give 
a million of votes to Garrison ; and the senator, I suspect, would give 
his million to either of the two, or to Gerrit Smith, or to his friend 
Wendell Phillips ; and I half suspect if Fred. Douglas was on the ticket 
it would make no serious difierence with him. [Laughter.] 

I made the charge the other day, and to it there has been no denial 
from the other side of the chamber, that in the very height of the con- 
flict for the presidency, Fred. Douglas, the free negro editor and orator, 
took down the name of Gerrit Smith and put up the name of John 
Charles Fremont. Why was not that denied ? My point, as all must have 
seen, was to show the tie that binds the Republicans on this floor to the 
extreme Abolition party out of doors. I wanted to show how they were 
being knit together — how, being drawn into close companionship, they 
will, by and by, constitute but one party — and then if the extreme Abo- 
lition element prevails, as it most likely will, the party must become, 
par excellence, the Abolition party. I believe that thousands of good 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 491 

men, now in the Republican ranks, will abandon them if they come to 
understand the designs of the leaders. I meant to expose these designs 
— to show that there was a plan on foot to Garrisonize the whole party ; 
and if I have done anything towards accomplishing this end I am sat- 
isfied. 

There are other points in the senator's speech, to which I will reply 
briefly. He and others have denied that there was anything of section- 
alism in the late contest ; and their denial is based, if I understand 
them correctly, on the ground that the mere fact of their candidates for 
President and Vice President being from the same section of the Union, 
did not establish sectionalism in the ticket. The senator cited the fact 
that Mr. Calhoun was upon the same ticket with General Jackson, and 
yet, he said, there was no charge of sectionalism then. Let me say to 
the senator, none but the feeblest mind could ever have pretended that 
the mere fact of both candidates being from the same section aff'orded 
evidence of sectionalism. I can select a ticket from Vermont and Mas- 
sachusetts to-day — and surely it would be as hard to get it there as any- 
where else — which would be purely national ; and so I could select one 
from the South which would be purely sectional as against the South. 
Why, sir, suppose Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, were nominated for 
the Presidency, and Francis P. Blair, of Maryland, for the Vice Presi- 
dency : does any one doubt that such a ticket would be a sectional 
ticket ? It would be a ticket hostile to the South, although both the 
nominees reside in slaveholding states. Surely I need not say to the 
senator that it is the sentiment of the party, and of its candidates, that 
constitute its sectionality, and not the residence of one or both its 
nominees. 

Are your sentiments national ? Were not the sentiments which you 
avowed in the late canvass confined exclusively to the favor of one sec- 
tion ? Were they not uniformly hostility to the other ? Does not the 
country so recognise them ? The senator himself, in the progress of his 
speech, and while uttering his complaint that we of the South did not 
tolerate speakers who entertain his opinion, gave us the best evidence 
of the sectionalism of his party. " Why," said he, " did we not have 
advocates in the South?" " Because," he answered, "you would not let 
the friends of our ticket speak there." Why did we not let them speak? 
Was it because they were national in their sentiments ? Was it because 
they came to advocate sentiments equally acceptable to the North and 
to the South, equally favorable to the one section as to the other ? No, 
sir, the senator knows this was not the reason. The senator knew per- 
fectly well that the reason why orators of his party were not allowed to 
speak in the South was simply this : that they came to speak against 
our institutions, against our domestic peace, against our domestic quie- 
tude, against our domestic safety — at least against what we believe to be 
our domestic peace, safety, and quietude ; and of this we simply claimed 
to be the best judges. The charge that we have stifled debate or 
attacked the freedom of speech is not true, and those who make it know 
it is not true. 

But, sir, the object of the senator in introducing this point was to 
complain of the want of liberality in the South. "Why," said he, 
" your southern people will not permit northern men to go there and 
express their honest sentiments. When they do go, you get up mobs 



492 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

and drive them out." Let me say to the senator, that when he or his 
friends come to the South to utter national sentiments, they will be 
heard with attention and listened to with deference. But when they 
come to preach such sentiments as a senator on this floor has been heard 
to utter within the last week, they may deem it fortunate if they escape 
the fury of an outraged people. When any man, whether he be a sena- 
tor or a private citizen, comes to tell our slaves " that they have a right 
to murder their masters, and that he will not advise them not to do it," 
we consider it no breach of hospitality, no violation of the freedom of 
speech, to say that such sentiments shall not be expressed in our midst. 
If the senator shall ever come to Mississippi and say there what I un- 
derstand he has said recently in this city, he will be ejected, if, indeed, 
no severer punishment shall be inflicted on him. 

Mr. Wilson. Do I understand the senator from Mississippi to state 
that I have said in this city anything of that kind — that I would ad- 
vise the slaves to cut their master's throats, or in any way whatever 
commit any violence ? 

Mr. Brown. I undertake to say, not what the senator has said, but 
what I understand he has said, from gentlemen who come to me 
avouched as men of character, namely : that he did say, in a public 
hotel in this city, in the last five days, that the slaves had a right to 
kill their masters, and that he would not advise them not to cut their 
masters' throats. 

Mr. Wilson. Mr. President, I desire to say here now, that in this 
city, or out of this city, I never harbored a thought of that character, 
and never gave it utterance — never at any time, or upon any occasion. 
If I could speak to the slaves of the South I would utter no voice of 
that character ; I would advise no violence whatever. I do not believe 
in it ; I would not advise it ; on the contrary, I believe that any insur- 
rections, any acts of violence on their part, can only end in one way, 
and that is to their own injury. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President, I certainly shall make no question as to 
the veracity of the senator. I have repeated what I have heard. I 
have repeated what I have in writing from a man whom gentlemen of 
the very highest character assure me is a man of respectability and 
honor. He told me that he heard the senator say so ; and he asserts, 
likewise, that there were other witnesses present, whose names he gave 
me. If the senator denies the charge, of course his denial ends the 
controversy. I am not to stand up in the face of the Senate and on 
any proof insist that a senator has spoken falsely. It is not my duty 
to do so. I will have no question of that sort with the senator from 
Massachusetts or any one else ; but if he desires to know upon what 
authority I made the statement, I am prepared here, or upon a private 
call, to produce the evidence. 

Much has been said, Mr. President, of an irritating character, on 
both sides of this slavery question. I do not know that the breach be- 
tween the North and the South can ever be healed. But it is very 
certain that those who desire peace should throw their oil on the water and 
not into the fire. While, therefore, I shall, as always heretofore, refuse 
to make unmanly concessions, I will abstain from saying anything that 
is irritating or unnecessarily severe. I am not ashamed to say that I 
want peace. 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 493 

Senators on the other side of the chamber, and their sympathizing 
friends all over the country, deplore the condition of the black man in 
the South. I shall not pause now to contrast his condition there with 
what it is in his native country. If the Christian religion be a reality 
— and in its sublime truths I am a firm believer — I am at a loss to un- 
derstand how any man can pretend that the barbarian and cannibal, 
standing on the shores of Africa, and blessed with freedom, is better off 
than the civilized and evangelized slave on a southern plantation, cursed 
with bondage. Allowing all you say of the horrors of slavery to be 
true, they are more than compensated by the moral and religious eleva- 
tion of the African in this country. But what you say is not true, and 
all the world knows it is not. One thing I may mention that is true be- 
yond all controversy, and that is, that those most familiar with slavery 
see the least of its horrors. I speak not alone of those who live in the 
South, and who see it every day in all its forms ; but of those in the 
free states most contiguous to it. The people in southern Illinois and 
the eastern part of Indiana live almost in sight of slavery, and mingle 
with it almost every day in Kentucky and Missouri. The people in 
these localities, more than any others in the free states, trade to the 
South ; they visit the plantations and mingle freely with the slaves and 
with their masters. The result is that they discard the sickly sentimen- 
tality so freely indulged in by those who know nothing of slavery 
except as they see it in Abolition newspapers and Black Republican 
speeches. Fourteen counties in southern Illinois gave Buchanan four- 
teen thousand votes, and Fremont less than four hundred. I suppose 
the mob did not drive the Republican orators out of that country, as 
tiiey did from the Southern States ; or if they did, I hope it is not to 
be charged to the account of the slaveocracy. The simple truth is, Mr. 
President, there is not one man in a thousand, who knows anything of 
slavery practically, that does not believe it to be the normal condition 
of the negro race. Seen through the interstices of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 
Garrison's Liberator, or one of the senator's speeches, it is, I grant you, 
a frightful outrage on humanity. 

The senator alluded, the other day, to certain speeches made by lead- 
ing statesmen in Virginia, which he assured us were more or less favora- 
ble to his side of this question. Does the senator know why such 
speeches are not made now ? Does he know why the ameliorating pro- 
cess in the condition of the slave, then going on, has ceased ? Does he 
know why there are thousands of slaves in bondage to-day who might 
otherwise have been free ? Does he know why the slaves are not edu- 
cated ? why their liberty is restricted, and their bondage made to sit 
more heavily upon them ? If he does not, I will tell him. It is because 
of the impertinent intermeddling of himself and his friends with matters 
that did not concern them. 

The senator told us, the other day, on what terms we could get his 
sympathy. Let me tell him on what terms he can get our respect and 
the gratitude of the slave. He can get both by simply minding his own 
business. His present policy is annoying to us and detrimental to the 
slave. I use those words in their proper sense. He may annoy and 
vex the master ; but if he lets slavery alone in the states, as he says he 
will, he will do him no harm. He may damage the slave by vexing the 
master ; but if he leaves the slave in bondage, he will do him no good. 



494 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

If you do not mean to overthrow slavery in the states, quit talking 
about it, quit exciting the fears of the master without a cause, and quit 
arousing the hopes of the slave without a purpose. That is my advice, 
and I charge nothing for it. 

There is one point of attack against slavery which seems to be a 
favorite with all its assailants in the Senate and out of it — and that is, 
its enervating and destroying effect on the people and states where it 
exists. The senator from Massachusetts went out of his way, the other 
day, to tell us that slavery had converted Mount Vernon into a jungle. 
While these charges are made and dwelt on with peculiar unction by the 
senator from Massachusetts, it is curious to read and ponder the speeches 
of the senator from New York, appealing to twenty-five millions of free- 
men to rise in their majesty and put down the three hundred and fifty 
thousand slaveholding aristocrats, who are ruling the country, sapping 
the foundations of liberty, and establishing an aristocracy in our midst. 
If slavery blights as with a mildew everything that it touches ; if it 
converts cultivated fields into wild jungles, and stately mansions into 
bat-roosts ; if it renders the people imbecile in morals and mentally im- 
potent ; is it not a little strange that three hundred and fifty thousand 
slaveholders should so have got the start of all the world, that twenty- 
five millions of free men are called into action to curb their growing 
power ? The truth is felt, Mr. President, though it is not acknowledged, 
that slavery has an elevating and ennobling effect on the white man. It 
is not true that the intellectual giants of the South, who have guided the 
destiny of the nation through so many years, are but the feeble progeny 
of an imbecile race, rendered morally oblique and intellectually impo- 
tent by the existence of slavery in the Southern States. It is not true 
that three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders, living in jungles, 
with no activity of mind, and no energy of body, have so excited the 
fears of the senator from New York. When we compare our Washing- 
tons, Jeffersons, Madisons, Henrys, Marshalls, Jacksons, and Calhouns, 
with your greatest and best men, no one can say, with truth, that we 
have cause to blush. 

But you tell us that your people are more progressive than ours. In 
the mechanic arts I grant that they are. Your work-shops are more 
numerous, and on a larger scale than ours. The work-shop is the home 
of vast numbers of your people. In its arts they excel, and we rejoice 
at their success. We rejoice, because it is for our mutual advantage that 
they succeed. We rejoice still more, because their success is a part of 
the common inheritance of the whole people. On the other hand, our 
home is in the cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco fields of the South. In 
our department who will deny that we have succeeded as well as you ? 
Nowhere on the habitable globe has the culture of cotton been brought 
to such perfection as in the Southern States of this Union. If gentle- 
men would only reflect that a proper division of labor, and the highest 
degree of success in every department, is the best evidence of na- 
tional prosperity, these ill-natured flings at the South would cease at 
once. 

I have no time to pursue this train of thought, though it might be 
done with profit both to the North and to the South. Whatever the 
northern people may say of us, we shall never cease to rejoice in their 
prosperity. 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 495 

I must pass on, Mr. President, because I find that my voice is failing 
me, and even my physical strength is giving way. Tlie senator from 
Maine [Mr. Fessenden] the other day told us that the South was con- 
stantly making demands ; that the South demanded that such and such 
things should be done by Congress ; and upon the failure of compli- 
ance we threatened a dissolution of the Union. If the senator has so 
understood us, allow me to say to him that he has understood us amiss. In 
making that declaration he did us grievous wrong. The South has de- 
manded nothing. She never came to your doors with a petition for 
favor at your hands. She never asked aflSrmative legislation from this 
government, on the subject of slavery, since it has had an existence, 
save in the pursuit of a clear and admitted constitutional right. Her 
position has been one of opposition to your action. Not being a peti- 
tioner, she has uniformly come here to remonstrate against your action. 
Her whole demand, her whole policy, might at any moment have been 
summed up, and it is now, in these three short words: "Let us alone.'' 
As some evidence that I am right on that question, I beg to read for the 
information of the senator from Maine the positions taken by my own 
state, not through her legislature, not through any informal convention, 
not through any primary mass meeting called by a newspaper, but 
through a convention of her people lawfully called to express her 
sovereign will in reference to this whole matter in controversy. So far 
as she is concerned, she demands nothing ; and I believe I can appeal 
with perfect confidence to senators from all the Southern States to bear 
me witness that her position is substantially the position of their states. 
First, she says there shall be no interference by congressional legisla- 
tion with the institution of slavery in the states. She certainly asks 
nothing in that but your forbearance. She then says, second, the slave 
trade between the states shall not be interfered with by action of Con- 
gress. Then she says, third, there shall be no action of Congress on 
the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia, or any place subject 
to the jurisdiction of Congress, incompatible with the safety and domes- 
tic tranquillity, or the rights and honor of the slaveholding states. Then 
she says, fourth, that the refusal of Congress to admit a new state, on 
the ground of her tolerating slavery within her limits, would be subject 
for complaint ; and declares, fifth, that Congress shall pass no law pro- 
hibiting slavery in any of the territories; and, sixth, that the repeal of 
the fugitive slave law, or the neglect or refusal of the general govern- 
ment to enforce the constitutional provision for the recovery of fugitive 
slaves, would be ground of complaint. 

These are six positions taken in convention, and neither one of them 
looks to afiirmative action on the part of the government ; neither of 
them demands anything but your forbearance ; neither of them demands 
anything except what may be summed up in three words — let us alone. 
Beyond that I undertake to say there is not now, has not been, and, in 
my opinion, never will be, any considerable number of southern people 
demanding anything. Let us alone ; leave us where we were left by the 
Constitution of the United States ; cease to interfere with us ; cease to 
make war upon us and our institutions, and our domestic safety, and we 
shall move on harmoniously together as our fathers did before us. 

I feel, Mr, President, that I ought to say a word in reference to our 
position as regards the territories. There seems to me to have been a 



496 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

most persevering attempt commenced, and pertinaciously kept up, 
throughout all the Northern States, to misrepresent the position of the 
Southern States and people on this point. What have ■\ve asked ? What do 
we ask now ? Simply to be treated as equals — to be allowed our equal 
rights and our equal position in the territories. The soil, all must admit, 
is the common property of all the people or of all the states. We have 
asked that Congress shall so treat it, and make no insulting discrimina- 
tion between the people of Mississippi and the people of Massachusetts 
— between the people of Nevr York and the people of Virginia ; but 
that all alike shall be allowed to go to the territories, and take with 
them whatever is recognised as property by the laws of the state from 
which they go. We have insisted, and do yet insist, that whoever 
makes laws for the territories is as much bound to give protection to us 
and our property, as to give protection to the northern man and his 
property. No right exists to discriminate against us, and we ask no 
discrimination in our favor. I appeal to the plain common sense of 
every man, if in this there has been anything unreasonable. In the 
name of all that is just, has not the citizen of Virginia the same right 
to go to Kansas or any other territory, and take with him that which is 
recognised as property by the laws of Virginia, as a New Yorker has to 
go and take with him that which is recognised as property by the laws 
of New York ? Have citizens of Massachusetts, let me ask, any higher 
privileges in the territory than citizens of Mississippi ? And if so, 
where did they obtain them ? How did they derive them ? By what 
authority do they undertake to claim for themselves exclusive privileges 
in the territories? If gentlemen are prepared to meet us on this 
ground of equality, the whole matter in controversy, as regards the ter- 
ritories, is settled at once. If any Mississippian shall attempt to set up 
authority through Congress, the territories, the people, or the states, to 
exclude citizens of Massachusetts, Maine, New York, New Hampshire, 
or of any other state, from the common territory, he Avill find himself 
opposed by the whole mass of southern people. We have always said, 
as I say to-day, that the citizens of the New England states, the citi- 
zens of all the free states, have the same right to go to the territories 
and take with them that which is recognised as property by the laws of 
their states, as we claim for ourselves, to go and take that which is re- 
cognised as property by the laws of the states from which we go. Then 
as to the protection of property after it gets there — whoever makes 
laws for the protection of the property of citizens of Maine, New York, 
New Hampshire, or Massachusetts, is, in my judgment — and I stand on 
that claim — equally bound to make laws for the protection of the pro- 
perty of Mississippians, Virginians, and Tennesseeans. If you ask no 
protection for your property through congressional legislation or through 
territorial legislation, Ave shall ask none for ours. If you ask protection 
for your property, we say we are equally entitled to protection for ours. 
We say that neither Congress nor the territorial legislature shall, with 
our consent, make any insulting discrimination between the people and 
property of one section of the Union, and the people and property of 
any other section — between the property of a citizen of New Hampshire 
or Massachusetts, and the property of a citizen of Maryland or Missis- 
sippi. Can we maintain ourselves on the soundness of this position ? 
And if not, why ? 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 497 

Do gentlemen claim that we are under the ban of the Constitution ? 
Do gentlemen pretend that the Constitution which gives us our authority 
to be here, which authorizes me to address this august body to-day, 
which brings us into this council-house, discriminates against the pro- 
perty of the fifteen Southern States of this Union ? Do they pretend 
that there is anything in that Constitution which denies to our pro- 
perty equal protection in the territories with the property of the other 
sixteen states of the Union ? I undertake to say that it is tlie only 
article of property which is clearly and distinctly recognised by the 
Constitution. Take anything else, merchandise, live-stock, anything 
you please, and you can find nothing in the Constitution which specially 
and specifically looks to its recognition as property. The Constitution 
does recognise persons held to service (slaves) as property, and it recog- 
nises nothing else by name. Every other kind of property is left to the 
protection of local or state legislation. Not a word is found in the Con- 
stitution about merchandise, live-stock, or money as property. Persons 
bound to service (slaves) alone are mentioned. Then with what pretence 
of justice is it said, that this property is under the ban of the Constitu- 
tion, or that it is not equally entitled to protection with any other kind 
of property ? 

The Southern States, Mr. President, have been accused of violence 
in the maintenance of their rights under the Constitution, as they under- 
stand them. Our people are set down as lawless, and are constantly 
charged with attempts to carry their points by force. A stranger would 
be very apt to conclude from the accounts given of us, that every southern 
man was a walking citadel. I shall make no defence against charges 
like this — our states and our people stand on the defensive. Never, sir, 
never since the government was founded, has the North had reason to 
complain that either the Southern States or the southern people have 
interfered with their domestic concerns. I have no reproaches to utter ; 
but can our northern friends say as much ? Can they say that they 
have never interfered with our domestic affairs ? 

When the Kansas bill was passed, we hoped there would be an end 
of this controversy. It was intended to take the question of slaver}'" 
out of Congress, and transfer it to the people of the territory where it 
properly belonged, and who, as we all agreed, had the right, at the 
'proper time, to settle it for themselves. What the proper time may be 
was a subject left open for discussion ; and to this point I will recur 
presently. 

It certainly was not contemplated by any of us that violence was to 
be used by any party to coerce a decision in Kansas. The people there, 
those who were bona fide citizens of the territory, were to be left per- 
fectly free to settle their domestic affairs in their own way, subject to 
but one influence, and that the benign and peaceful influence of the 
Constitution. No sooner had this bill passed than a concerted and 
powerful effort was set on foot here, and rapidly taken up in the New 
England States, to colonize the territory with a vagrant population. ' 
Men were enlisted and sent there, not to cultivate the soil, not to erect 
work-shops and carry on the mechanic arts — no, not for these purposes. 
They went not with the artisan's tools or the implements of husbandry 
in their hands, but with rifles, bowie knives, and other deadly weapons. 
Their object could not be mistaken. Instead of colonizing the country, 
32 



498 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

and making for tliemselves beneficent and •wliolesome laws — laws under 
which they meant themselves to live — people went to Kansas for no 
higher purpose than to fan the flames of discord, and to make laws from 
which they meant themselves to flee. They went for mischief, and they 
got it ; they sowed the whirlwind, and reaped the storm. They were 
sent to Kansas to make Kansas a free state, nolens volens, and the 
Missourians were inflamed to madness by their conduct. It was not, sir, 
that these men went, or the states from which they went, that stirred 
the blood of Missourians, but it was the purpose for which they went. 
When the Kansas bill passed, very few of us expected Kansas to become 
a slave state, and very few of us cared much whether it did or not. But 
when we saw an attempt made by the enemies of slavery to plant on the 
borders of a slave state a free-soil colony, with no higher purpose than 
to harass that state — when we saw an attempt made by strangers to 
enslave the bona fide white settlers in Kansas, by forcing on them, not 
a Kansas but a New England government, our people rose en masse, 
and sAvore, by the God that made them, these things should not be. 

The senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Hale] the other day paraded 
before the Senate a handbill — and he did it with a flourish of trumpets 
that would have done honor to the fat knight when he claimed the credit 
of killino- Hotspur. The handbill spoke of Buchanan, and Breckenridge, 
iind free Kansas. The senator evidently thought he had made a grand 
discovery. I certainly do not mean to approve of that handbill. It 
probably suggested an erroneous idea to many who saw it. It may have 
suo-fT-ested that the Democratic party was for Kansas free, as the senator 
from New Hampshire understood the word " free ;" and if it did, it sug- 
gested a falsehood. The Democratic party, as a party, is neither fur 
free Kansas nor slave Kansas, as the Free-soilers understand the words 
"free" and "slave." The Democratic party is for leaving Kansas 
perfectly /ree, at the right time, to settle the slavery question for herself, 
restrained only, as we all are in our action, by the provisions of the 
Federal Constitution. In this sense the Democrats are for free Kansas. 
The senator's idea, if I understand him, is to make Kansas free by 
releasino- the black man from the authority of his master, and then force 
a government on the white people in the territory, through the agency 
of New Eno-land emigrant aid societies. His free Kansas makes the 
neo-ro free by enslaving the white man ; but my free Kansas makes the 
white man free, and leaves the negro where the Constitution left him — 
subject to the authority of his master. 

I was somewhat surprised, Mr. President, the other day, to hear the 
senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull], in catechising the senator from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Bigler], who Avas then addressing the Senate, raise 
the question as to how far we, on the Democratic side of the house, con- 
curred in opinion upon the mooted point of squatter sovereignty. I 
suppose the object of the senator in introducing that point was to make 

mischief to stir up strife between senators on this side of the chamber. 

If that was his purpose, let me say to him that he fell, as he will con- 
tinue to fall, very far short of his mark. That there may be shades of 
difference in our opinions is very likely ; that I do not, on every point, 
concur with my distinguished and venerable friend from Michigan is 
probable ; but that there is any difference between us which can by pos- 
sibilitv prevent our acting in harmony for the accomplishment of certain 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 499 

great purposes which the national Democracy have in view, I utterly 
deny. I should prefer to have my friend agree with me, as he may 
prefer to have me agree with him ; but our difference is not such, as I 
shall presently show, that we may not, without sacrifice on either side, 
act together on practical issues. 

But, sir, how comes it that the senator from Illinois, how comes it 
that other senators on his side have, all of a sudden, found something 
so monstrous in this doctrine of squatter sovereignty ? When had we 
the first evidence exhibited to us of the power of squatter sovereignty 
on this continent ? Excuse me, sir, but I undertake to say, that the 
first exhibition of it was in the state which you have the honor solely 
at this moment to represent on the floor of the Senate [Mr. Weller in 
the chair]. When the people of California assembled in convention, 
and undertook to frame a state constitution for themselves, they were 
all squatters ; they were in the country without authority of law ; there 
was no law authorizing them to be there. When they assembled in 
convention on the high mission of making a state constitution, they 
assembled there to perform an act of sovereignty ; when they made the 
constitution and set up a state government in all its forms, it was an act 
of sovereignty performed by squatters and by nobody else. 

I^ow, sir, I ask senators on the other side of the chamber, whether 
they did not sanction that proceeding? I pray you, gentlemen, were 
you not, one and all, in favor of admitting California under her squatter- 
sovereignty constitution ? Was not the senator from Illinois the advo- 
cate for the admission of California under the constitution thus formed ? 
Was not the senator from New York, and he from Massachusetts, and 
he from Ohio, all around the chamber, wherever they are, were they not 
friends of the admission of California under her squatter-sovereignty 
constitution ? Then what right have they to complain of squatter sover- 
eignty ? And then who was the first representative of squatter sovereignty 
on this floor ? When California was admitted, there were already at the 
door of the Senate two gentlemen asking for admission. One of them 
was John Charles Frdmont. He came here as a senator, the first who 
presented himself from California, and he was the very embodiment of 
squatter sovereignty. He had no constituency but a squatter-sovereignty 
constituency. He came from no state but a state brought into being by 
squatter sovereigns. These gentlemen, to a man, advocated his admis- 
sion. They not only went for the admission of the state, but for the 
admission of her senators. Thus they endorsed the whole proceeding 
up to that time. I suspect that they, and all their class of politicians, 
are very much like one I heard speaking lately. He said he was for 
squatter sovereignty if it worked out in his favor, and against it if it 
did not. 

In my opinion, squatter sovereignty is a misnomer, and territorial 
sovereignty a humbug. I understand, sir, what is meant by state sover- 
eignty, and, in my opinion, there is no other kind of sovereignty existing 
in this country. Squatter sovereignty, territorial sovereignty, and popu- 
lar sovereignty (when applied to the territories), all belong to the same 
category, and they are all political absurdities in my opinion. But I 
am not going to bore the Senate by giving the reasons why I think so. 

We agreed to let Kansas and all the other territories manage their 
own affairs in their own way, subject only to the Constitution. We differed, 



500 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

as to wliat a territory might rightfully do under the Constitution. My 
friend from Michigan [Mr. Cass] thought, and still thinks, a territorial 
legislature, such as that in Kansas, has the right, under the Constitu- 
tion, to exclude slavery. I think differently. He is not seeking to 
have his ideas enacted into a law by Congress ; nor am I. He admits 
that if the legislature of Kansas has not the right, under the Constitu- 
tion, to exclude slavery, Congress cannot confer it ; and I know, if the 
legislature has the right Congress cannot take it away. Therefore, 
neither of us propose that Congress shall do anything. We voted 
together on the Kansas bill, and agreed then to refer all our difference 
of opinion to the Supreme Court of the United States — the only tribunal 
on earth competent to decide between us. When that decision is ren- 
dered, we both stand solemnly pledged to abide by it. I speak not now 
of what a sovereign state, in the exercise of her reserved rights, may 
do — that is a subject for future consideration and decision. Now, sir, 
the difference between my honorable friend and myself is precisely the 
difference between Democrats who believe in squatter sovereignty and 
Democrats who do not believe in it. 

If an unorganized territory, such as California was in 1849, such as 
Kansas was in 1853, such as the Indian Territory outside of Arkansas 
now is, shall undertake to exclude slavery, the senator from Michigan 
and myself agree that it undertakes to do what it has no right to do. 
But if an organized territory, like Kansas or Nebraska, undertakes, 
through its legislative council, to exclude slavery, the senator thinks 
they have the right to do it. I do not think so. This he calls popular 
sovereignty. I call it the assumption of a right not conferred by the 
Constitution, and therefore not existing in the territory. He may be 
right. I think he is not. But neither of us desires or expects Congress 
to decide between us. 

The senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull], the other day, interrogated 
the senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Bigler], as to what Mr. Buchanan's 
views were on this point. My friend from Pennsylvania declined to 
reply, because he had no authority to do so. The friends of Mr. Bu- 
chanan were satisfied with his position on this point before they nomi- 
nated and elected him, and they are not likely to fall out with him no\> 
on account of any suggestions coming from his enemies, secret or open. 
That he will hold the scales of justice in equal balance, between the 
North and the South, I have no doubt ; and if he does, his friends North 
and South will adhere to him. They were strong enough to elect him ; 
and if he fulfils their hopes, as I am sure he will, they will show them- 
selves strong enough to carry his administration through in triumph. 
Mr. Buchanan may laugh his enemies to scorn. He has only to feel 
the inspiration that moved the hearts of his friends at Cincinnati, and 
stand firmly on the platform laid down by them, and they will throw 
over him their arms, and build around him a rampart that will defy the 
power of the Black Republicans and all their allies. 

But, to return to the territories : We of the Democratic faith all agree 
that they may, at the proper time, settle the slavery question for them- 
selves. Some think it may be done sooner ; but we all agree that when 
the people of a territory meet in convention to frame a state constitu- 
tion, they may, in that constitution, admit or exclude slavery, as they 
please ; and we agree, further, that their decision is final. If Kansas 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 601 

comes here with a constitution made by her bona fide people, free from 
all outside influences, excluding slavery, there is not a Democrat in 
either House of Congress who -will not vote for her admission ; and if, 
on the other hand, she comes with a constitution similarly made tolerat- 
ing slavery, there is not a Democrat who will not vote for her admission. 
Break up your emigrant aid societies at the North, and all interference 
from the South will cease. Then Kansas, being left perfectly free to 
regulate her domestic affairs in her own way, may assemble her people 
in convention, frame her constitution to suit herself, admit or exclude 
slavery as she pleases, and she will be welcomed into the Union with 
open arms by every friend of free institutions, from the Aroostook to the 
to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlantic to the far-off Pacific. Sir, 
the Democracy has stood for fifty years, like our own ocean-bound 
republic. The waves of faction have beaten upon it, and they have 
broken, in harmless ripples, at its feet. It stands to-day a fit type of 
our glorious country — the hope of the oppressed in every land, and a 
beacon-light to the sons of freedom throughout the world It will uphold 
the Constitution. It will preserve the Union. It will disappoint the 
tyrants of the Old World, and the enemies of liberty in the New. 
Democracy will go on conquering and to conquer, until all parties shall 
confess its dominion, and the whole world be converted to the sublime 
truths which it teaches. This is its mission. 

We mean, Mr. President, to settle this slavery question on a firm and 
lasting, because on a just, liberal, and constitutional basis. We mean 
to stop agitation ; we mean to give repose to the South, and quiet to 
the whole country ; we mean to rout the Abolitionists and bury Black , 
Republicanism so low that the sound of Gabriel's trumpet will not reach 
it on the day of judgment ! This is our hope ; this our prayer ; this our 
confident expectation ; but if Ave shall be deceived in this — if it shall 
please God to prosper our enemies — if there shall be no settlement — if 
agitation is kept up — if the South can have no peace — if our enemies 
have the power, and are resolved to use it in breaking up the Union, 
and trampling the Constitution under foot — then we will turn to the 
senator from New York, the great chieftain of his party, and the author 
of all our woes, and we wall say to him and his infatuated allies, as 
Abram said to Lot : " Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me 
and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen, for we are 
brethren. Is not the whole land before thee ? Separate thyself, I pray 
thee, from me : if thou wdlt take the left hand, then I will go to the right ; 
or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." If this 
appeal shall fail to reach the heart of the senator and his allies, there 
will be but one alternative left us, ahd that an appeal to the God of 
battles. May Heaven, in its mercy, avert such a calamity ! 



502 ALBERT G. BROWN. 



THE RHODE ISLAND RESOLUTIONS ON THE 

SUMNER ASSAULT. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JUNE 16, 1856, ON THE 

RESOLUTIONS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF RHODE ISLAND, 

RELATIVE TO THE ASSAULT ON MR. SUMNER. 

Mr. Brown. I object to the printing of these resolutions ; and I 
know the responsibility which I assume in objecting to printing resolu- 
tions coming from a sovereign state of this Union. I make the objection 
without expecting to succeed in it. 

Mr. Weller. I believe the rule of the Senate requires the printing 
of resolutions coming from state legislatures. I present the point of 
order, that the rule requires the printing of memorials and resolutions 
of state legislatures, and you cannot abrogate or change that rule with- 
out presenting a proposition for that purpose, which requires one day's 
notice. 

Mr. Brown. I suppose it at least admits of debate, whether we shall 
print the resolutions or not. 

Mr. Seward. Freedom of debate requires that. 

Mr. Brown. As I have already said, I do not expect to succeed in 
my opposition. I am aware of the rule to which the senator from Cali- 
fornia alludes. When the legislature of Massachusetts thought proper 
to send us resolutions in reference to what she conceived to be an out- 
rage on one of her senators, I thought it well enough to let the matter 
pass without discussion ; but when another state conceives it to be her 
duty to take up the question, and come in with her resolves, denouncing 
the transaction which took place here as a cowardly and brutal outrage, 
and as an attempt to stifle debate, it strikes me as presenting the subject 
altogether in a new light. 

I have seen nothing in this matter which struck me as an attempt, on 
the part of any one, to stifle or check the utmost freedom of debate, here 
or elsewhere. A senator from Massachusetts, in the exercise of his 
privilege, delivered himself, with the utmost freedom, of his opinions 
upon certain very delicate questions ; and in the progress of his remarks, 
took occasion to reflect severely upon the historic character of one of 
the states of this Union, and to reprobate, in strong and pointed per- 
sonal terms, the conduct and bearing of one of the senators from that 
state, who was then absent. A representative from South Carolina felt 
it to be his privilege to call that senator to personal account for what he 
said on that occasion. 

Now, sir, I know what are the guarantees of the Constitution ; but in 
the wildest flights of my imagination, I never dreamt that the Constitu- 
tion guarantied, or undertook to guaranty, to me, or to any other mem- 
ber of the American Senate, the unrestrained privilege of denouncing 
states, and senators, and private citizens, in such terms as I might think 
proper to employ, and yet of claiming under the Constitution immunity 
from all account, out of doors, for what T might say. I had supposed, 
and I do yet suppose, that if, in the exercise of my privilege as a sena- 



RHODE ISLAND RESOLUTIONS ON THE SUMNER ASSAULT. 503 

tor, I denounce any gentleman in terras to him personally offensive, I 
am, as a gentleman, accountable to him for what I say ; and the Con- 
stitution never undertook to shield and protect me against that. 

Mr. James. The honorable senator and myself perfectly agree in 
that respect. 

Mr. Brown. I dare say that I perfectly agree with my gallant friend 
from Rhode Island; but do I agree with "little Rhody?" Does Rhode 
Island agree to this ? If she does, why comes she here with these reso- 
lutions ? Why does she, in her sovereign capacity, as a member of this 
confederacy, undertake to interpose in a mere personal quarrel — in a 
mere personal controversy between two individuals? I take it for 
granted that the honored state from which my friend comes, believes 
that a great outrage has been committed on the Constitution ; that there 
has been a bona fide attempt here to restrain the freedom of debate; 
that the South, in the person of the representative from South Carolina, 
has undertaken the grave task of restraining the North, in the person 
of the senator from Massachusetts, in the full exercise of that freedom 
of speech which is guarantied by the Constitution. 

That is the light in which I am to suppose Rhode Island views the 
case, judging by the resolutions which she has sent here, and which are 
now on your table. I do not regard the transaction in any such view. 
If, as I said at the outset, a senator has made a gross personal assault 
by words upon any senator, or upon a representative, or upon anybodv 
out of doors, then, in his person, not as a senator, but as an individual. 
I hold that he is accountable for such insult and outrage. Heaven forbid 
that I should ever undertake to protect myself under the panoply of the 
Constitution for words spoken here. So long as I confine myself to the 
legitimate discussion of questions fairly before the Senate, avoidinor 
personalities, it would be an outrage on the freedom of debate if any 
one here or elsewhere should undertake to call me to account, or prevent 
me saying what I choose to say in respect to questions before this body ; 
but if I go outside of the line to offer a personal affront to a brother 
senator, a personal indignity to a member of the House of Representa- 
tives, to a state of the Union, or to any private citizen, I must be ac- 
countable for it ; and the Constitution, I apprehend, never undertook to 
guaranty me against being called to account if I thus trespass on the 
rights of others. Rhode Island must either be mistaken as to what are 
the facts of the case, or understands the Constitution of our country in 
a different light from that in which I understand it. I rose, sir, to object 
to the printing of the resolutions, simply that I might have an oppor- 
tunity of presenting my humble protest against their doctrines. 
In reply to Mr. Seward Mr. Brown said : — 

If the senator from New York will allow me, I will state what I meant. 
He will understand me as saying that neither the senator from Massa- 
chusetts, nor any other senator, is responsible in a court of justice, as 
for a libel, for anything uttered on this floor; but he will also understand 
me as taking the ground distinctly, that, as a man and as a gentleman, 
he is responsible out of doors for what he says here personally offensive 
to other people. In other words, if I choose, on the floor of the Senate, 
to offer to the senator from New York a gross personal insult, as a man 
and as a gentleman, I am responsible to him. The Constitution has ' 
never undertaken to shield me from that responsibility. While I say 



504 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

nothing of the conduct of other gentlemen, I say for myself, that, if I 
offered such an affront and the senator demanded of me satisfaction, and 
I undertook to shield myself behind the Constitution, all Christendom 
would say that I had acted meanly and cowardly. 

Mr. Seward. I do not misunderstand the honorable senator from Mis- 
sissippi ; at all events, I am sure I do not intentionally misunderstand 
him. I understand him to say that the state of Rhode Island takes 
alarm unnecessarily, and unwisely, and unjustly, for the freedom of 
debate in the Senate of the United States, under the circumstances 
presented on this occasion. Those circumstances are simply these — that 
a senator, for words spoken in debate, has been assailed, beaten, and 
brought to the floor of the Senate Chamber, by the hand of a member 
of the House of Representatives. 

Mr. Brown. Allow me to say to the senator that I treat the trans- 
action which chanced to happen in the Senate Chamber precisely as if 
it had happened anywhere else. I attach no special sanctity to this 
chamber, except when the body is in session. I prefer, as a mere matter 
of taste, that this transaction should have occurred elsewhere ; but I say, 
I attach no special importance to its happening here. If Mr. Brooks 
committed any outrage upon Mr. Sumner, if his conduct was cowardly, if 
he crept upon him and struck him unawares, and thereby got the advan- 
tage, Mr. Sumner yet survives ; he has a right to demand personal 
satisfaction. If he demands it, and Mr. Brooks refuses it, I shall then 
know where to put my denunciation. But this, I say again, is a matter 
of controversy between two persons, with which I think the states of 
the Union have no sort of connection. 

Mr. Seward rejoined, and Mr. Brown replied as follows : — 

There is only one point in the speech of the senator from New York 
on which I care to comment. He agrees with me that senators and 
representatives are not to be called to account by libel suits for words 
spoken in debate ; but he goes further, and takes the ground that they 
are not to be called to account in any manner, no odds what they may 
say. He thinks that a senator may get up here, and offer any sort of 
affront which he may choose to offer to a brother senator — may denounce 
in any manner, no matter how broad, a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives — may utter every sort of denunciation against a private citizen, 
may belie, libel, and traduce a sovereign state of this Union; and yet 
for all this is protected by the Constitution, and that to call him to 
account outside of the Senate is a grave offence against the Constitution. 
So I understand the senator. He nods assent. 

Against all that doctrine I enter here, in the American Senate, my 
most solemn and emphatic protest. I am willing that it shall go to the 
country that, if I offend the senator from New York in debate, I am 
responsible to him, not as a senator, but as a man and as a gentleman ; 
I am responsible to him out of doors, and the Constitution has thrown 
around me no protection in that regard. If I say of any man out of 
doors, who is entitled to be recognised as a gentleman, an offensive 
thing, I am responsible for having said so, in my personal character as 
a gentleman. If I choose to denounce the state of Massachusetts in 
(jross and offensive terms, or the state of New York, and one of her 
citizens calls me to account for it, as a man, as a gentleman, i am 
responsible, and the Constitution has given me no immunity against 



& 



RHODE ISLAND RESOLUTIONS ON THE SUMNER ASSAULT. 505 

such responsibility. The Constitution has guarantied to me the right 
to say what I choose in this chamber. Though it may be libellous, though 
it may be grossly scandalous, though it may be in the highest possible 
degree offensive, I am not to be called to account in a court of justice, 
as a senator, for what I say here ; but the Constitution has given me no 
license to libel "all the world and the rest of mankind;" it has not 
guarantied to me the privilege of saying to the senator from New York 
that he is a black-hearted Abolitionist, or anything else that may be 
personally oflensive to that senator, and then given me an immunity, a 
protection, a guarantee, against responsibility outside of this chamber. 
The Constitution, in my opinion, has given me no such guarantee ; there- 
fore, I say, as I did at the outset, without meaning to protract this 
debate, that the senator from New York and myself are pointedly at 
issue as to what are our constitutional rights on this floor. 

I mean, as a senator, so long as I occupy a position here, to be respon- 
sible out of doors for whatever I say — not in any libel suit — I will 
protect myself against that if I choose to do so, because that is my 
constitutional right ; but for whatever I say here, as a man, as a citizen, 
and as a gentleman, I will be responsible out of doors. I believe the 
Constitution gives me no protection, nor did it ever design to give me 
protection against such responsibility. If it had undertaken to do it, 
the undertaking would be futile. 

There is no use in discussing this question. If men will give gross 
personal affronts to others, they must be responsible in their own proper 
persons ; and no laws, no constitution, until our whole nature is changed, 
can alter this feeling of our common humanity. We must either be 
base, beneath the dignity of men, or elevated to the dignity of angels, 
before you can enforce any other rule, whether it be in the Constitution, 
in the law, or elsewhere. A person must be less than a man, and, from 
the very nature of his degradation, too low to resent a personal affront, 
or else he must be akin to the angels, and, therefore, so much above 
man, that there can be no occasion for his resenting personal injuries, 
before you can enforce that rule. The men who made the Constitution 
were human. They were like the senator from New York and myself. 
They never undertook to debase us below the dignity of men, or elevate 
us to the dignity of angels or demi-gods. They regarded us, I conceive, 
as mere mortals ; took us as they found us, and made a Constitution 
which suited our condition as men — I trust, as dignified men. They 
protected us against vexatious suits for libel and damages for what, in 
the discharge of our duties, we choose to say here. They never gave 
us, in my opinion, an unlimited privilege of libelling all the world, and 
then saying to all the world, " Hands off; we are a privileged class; we 
are clothed with the panoply of the Constitution ; here we stand in all 
our majesty and in all our dignity ; we say to you that you are rogues, 
thieves, liars, scoundrels, cowards, and everything which can make you 
infamous, and yet we are not responsible because we are senators." I 
believe no such thing, and will maintain no such doctrine here or else- 
where ; and this I say independent of the fracas which occurred on the 
floor of the Senate Chamber — not in the Senate. 



506 ALBERT G. BROWN. 



PEKSONAL EXPLANATION. 

On the 20th of March, 1858, Mr. Brown made the following remarks : — 

I HAVE a very small matter of account to settle with the senator from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson], and as it only concerns myself, it is not 
, material that anybody but himself should be present. In a speech pro- 
nounced by him on the 4th of February — which I did not hear at the 
time — he made certain quotations from a speech of mine delivered some 
years ago, and he did me (unintentionally, I have no doubt) very 
marked injustice. I did not reply at the time, because I did not chance 
to be in my seat. He quoted two paragraphs from my speech, and 
quoted them correctly. He then quoted what purports to be a third 
paragraph from the same speech ; but I never should have known that 
it was taken from the same speech if he had not so stated ; because, having 
read the whole speech over since, I find no such paragraph as the third 
one in it. It is only by that landmark that I was enabled to trace out 
in what speech of mine it was intended to locate that third paragraph, to 
which I now call the attention of the senator and of the Senate. He 
says — attributing the language which he quotes as being used by me in 
the speech alluded to : — 

" The senator makes professions of devotion to the Union. In the very speech 
from which I have before quoted, the senator says that — 

" 'Our people have been calculating the value of the Union.' * * * 
' I tell you candidly we have calculated the value of the Union. Love for the Union 
will not keep us in the Union.' 

" The whole tone, temper, and sentiment look not to the support of the Union as 
our fathers made it, but to the triumph of a sectional southern policy, to the expan- 
sion of slavery, or to the ultimate overthrow of the government of this country." 

Now, sir, no such paragraph as is here quoted appears in the speech 
in which the first two paragraphs, quoted by the senator from Massa- 
chusetts, appear. It is a speech delivered by me on the 30th of Jan- 
' uary, 1850, in the House of Representatives, and reported at pages 
250-258, and along there generally, of the Congressional Globe of that 
year. The three sentences embodied in that paragraph may possibly be 
found in the whole body of the speech. I believe they may be, by 
dividing sentences, and taking detached portions of paragraphs, and 
putting them together. What I assert is, that no such paragraph ap- 
pears in the speech, and that the three sentences put together make up 
a paragraph which wholly distorts the meaning of the speech ; and that 
I may set myself right before the Senate and the country, I shall send 
to the secretary's desk, and ask to have three paragraphs, which I have 
marked, read from that speech, in which, if any three sentences bear- 
ing the meaning of the three I have read appear at all in the whole 
speech, they will be found. I ask the clerk to read the three short par- 
agraphs which I have marked, to show what was the general character 
of the speech, and to show that the senator from Massachusetts, in at- 
tributing that language to it, and saying that it contained such a para- 
graph, wholly misconceived the general scope and design of that speech. 
It was not, as he assumed, a disunion speech; it was not a speech 



PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS. 607 

showing that I was seeking the disruption of the Union ; but, on the 
contrary, in all its amplitude, so far as my feeble ability could make it, 
it was emphatically a Union speech. I do not come here now, nor did 
I stand in the House of Representatives in 1850, as the especial and 
particular defender or eulogist of the Union. I am content to feel and 
know, in my heart of hearts, that I am for the Union ; but I never was 
one of those who believed that the Union was to be saved by singing 
paeans to its fame or to its glory. It is to be saved by other means, if it 
is to be preserved at all. I do not care to detain the Senate. I want 
to set myself right ; and I ask that those three paragraphs be read. 
The secretary read as follows : — 

" Throw an impartial eye over the history of the last twenty years, and answer me 
if there is anything there which challenges our devotion? Who does not know that 
time after time we have turned away in sorrow from your oppressions, and yet have 
come back clinging to the Union, and proclaiming that, ' with all her faults we loved 
her still.' And you expect us to do so now, again and again ; you expect us to re- 
turn, and, on bended knees, crave your forbearance. No, you do not ; you cannot 
think so meanly of us. There is nothing in our past history which justifies the con- 
clusion that we will thus abase ourselves. You know how much a high-toned people 
ought to bear ; and you know full well that we have borne to the last extremity. 
You know that we ought not to submit any longer. There is not a man of lofty soul 
among you all who, in his secret heart, does not feel that we ought not to submit. If 
you fancy that our devotion to the Union will keep us in the Union, you are mis- 
taken. Our love for the Union ceases with the justice of the Union. We cannot love 
oppression, nor hug tyranny to our bosoms." ******* 

" I tell you candidly, we have calculated the value of the Union. Your injustice 
has driven us to it. Your oppression justifies me to-day in discussing the value of 
the Union, and I do so freely and fearlessly. Your press, your people, and your pulpit 
may denounce this as treason — be it so. You may sing hosannas to the Union — it is 
well. British lords called it treason in our fathers, when they resisted British tyranny. 
British orators were eloquent in their eulogies on the British crown. Our fathers 
felt the oppression, they saw the hand that aimed the blow, and they resolved to 
resist. The result is before the world. We will resist, and trust to God and our own 
stout hearts for the consequences." * * * * * * 

" I repeat, we deprecate disunion. Devoted to the Constitution — reverencing the 
Union — holding in sacred remembrance the names, the deeds, and the glories of our 
common and illustrious ancestry, there is no ordinary ill to which we would not bow 
sooner than dissolve the political associations of these new states. If there was any 
point short of absolute ruin to ourselves, and desolation to our country, at which 
these aggressive measures would certainly stop, we would say at once, go to that 
point and give us peace. But we know full well, that when all is obtained that you 
now ask, the cormorant appetite for power and plunder will not be satisfied. The 
tiger may be driven from his prey, but when once he dips his tongue in blood, he 
will not relinquish his victim without a struggle." — Congressional Globe, Thirty-First 
Congress, first session, page 259. 

Mr. Brown. In a single word, I want to say that that speech was 
pronounced in 1850, calmly, deliberately, upon full consideration. It' 
has been extensively criticised since, in my own state and in the papers, 
North and South. I stand in the presence of the American Senate to- 
night to say that I endorse every word and syllable of it, and am pre- 
pared to vindicate it ; but I do not stand prepared to be charged with 
having uttered alone and without connection the language quoted by the 
senator from Massachusetts. All of us know how easy it is to snatch 
out a sentence here and a sentence there, from a speech, and put them 
together and make up precisely what the speaker never intended to 
enunciate. Take the speech in all its amplitude, and I see nothing in 
it of which I feel ashamed ; nothing which I am not prepared to endorse 
in this or any other presence. 



508 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

I stand here to-night prepared to saj, in the connection in which I 
then used the language, that we have calculated the value of the Union. 
We calculated it, as I then said, to ascertain how much oppression we 
could bear before we threw it off. I do not belong to that school of 

• politicians who believe that the Union is paramount to everything else. 
I put the rights of the states above the Union ; I put the sovereignty 
of the states above the Union ; I put the liberty of this people under 
the Constitution above the Union. All these were above it in the be- 
ginning ; to all these the Union in the beginning was subordinate ; and, 
so far as I have power, it shall remain subordinate. I can feel a proper 
degree of devotion to the Union without feeling that all power is concen- 
trated in the Union, that it is paramount, that the states must succumb 
to it, that the sovereignty of the states must pale in its presence, that 
the liberty of the people must bow down in the august presence of this 
Union. I believe no such thing, and will act upon no such principle. 
The Union was made by the states ; it is subordinate to the states ; and, 
within its proper sphere, I will stand by it and make as many sacrifices 
as anybody else to maintain it. But I will sing no paeans to the Union. 
I do not stand here as its especial and particular eulogist. The rights 

V of my state, the rights of my oppressed section, are worth more to me 
than the Union. I have said so before, here and at home. I say so 

• now ; and, if that is to be disunion, let it be so. 



COMMODORE PAULDING'S ARREST OF 

WALKER. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 7, 1858, ON THE 
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE RELATIVE TO THE ARREST OF WILLIAM 

WALKER. 

This question, Mr. President, stands where I have apprehended for 
the last three or four days it would stand. The President of the United 
States disapproves of the arrest of Walker, and excuses it. He disap- 
proves of it on the ground that the arrest was in violation of law ; and 
if it was, I hold that he has no right to excuse it. If Commodore Pauld- 
ing had the right to arrest Walker in Nicaragua, his conduct ought not 
only to be excused, but it ought to be applauded. If, however, he had 
no legal right to do that act, the President of the republic owes it to 
the people, whose president he is, to condemn it. 

If Walker has been guilty of any violation of law, and has been 
arrested and brought back to our shores as a fugitive from justice, why 
is he not put in the clutches of the law ? Why is he brought to New 
York, placed in the hands of the marshal, brought here, and offered to 
the government, and then set at liberty ? Why is he not carried to 
Louisiana by the same authority which arrested him, and there put upon 
his trial on this charge of violating the law ? Sir, this is a farce being 
played out before the American people, disreputable to all who are 
engaged in it. There has been no violation of law. Those who have 



COMMODORE PAULDING'S ARREST OF WALKER. 509 

trumped up the charge against Walker know that there has been no 
violation of law. If they believe that he has violated the law, then 
they are grossly derelict in duty in not returning him to Louisiana, that 
he may be tried under the law and convicted of the offence whereof he 
stands charged. But he is not sent there, and that is an admission that 
he is not guilty, and that a conviction cannot be procured. Then he 
has not been brought here to answer to any indictment ; for if he has, 
I charge again that those who brought him here are not discharging 
their duty. 

Now, sir, I hold this to be true : that the fitting out of an expedition 
in violation of the neutrality laws, is one thing; that the voluntary 
expatriation of a citizen, is altogether another and a different thing. 
If Walker has fitted out an expedition against Nicaragua, or any other 
country at peace with the United States, he has violated the law ; but 
if he has girt his arms about him and voluntarily gone aboard a ship 
going to the coast of Nicaragua, avowing to all the world that he was 
going there to wage war against the government, I hold he had the 
right to do so. In that there is no fitting out of an expedition. I hold 
it to be my right under the law, to-day, to take my musket upon my 
shoulder, go and tell the President and his Secretary of War, his dis- 
trict attorneys, and his marshals, everywhere, that I mean, thus 
accoutred, to go and take part against Nicaragua, and they have no 
power to arrest me. If one has the right to go, two, three, four, five, 
or even five hundred have the right in the same manner, each going 
upon his individual account. 

I will tell you, sir, where I think the mistake in this whole matter 
lies. The government is attempting to punish what the law never con- 
templated should be punished — the intention to fit an expedition beyond 
the limits of the United States made of materials gathered within the 
limits of the United States. The expedition must be fitted out here; it 
must be fitted upon your soil ; it must be an entirety, before the law 
takes cognisance of it. I hold that each individual has the right to go 
away, and that you have no power to arrest him. The intention to go 
beyond the limits of the United States, there to fit and equip an expe- 
dition, is not a violation of the law. You have in this District a law 
punishing the intention to go beyond the limits of the District of 
Columbia to fight a duel ; but, until you had that law, parties did go 
beyond the limits of the District, and did fight duels, without being 
amenable to your anti-duelling law. It is your last anti-duelling law that 
takes cognisance of the intention, and punishes it. So, sir, if you had 
a law to punish the intention to take the material from the United 
States to fit an expedition beyond the limits of the Union, you might 
get hold of Walker — for that is all that he has done. He has gathered 
his material in New York, New Orleans, and Mobile, and perhaps other 
points ; he has taken them man by man beyond the limits of the Union, 
and there fitted out his expedition, and gone to Nicaragua. In that, 
there has been no violation of law, because there is nothing in the law 
to punish the intention to fit an expedition, if the expedition was fitted 
beyond the Union. 

I have a word to say, now, as to the conduct of these naval officers. I 
have as high a regard for the navy, I think, as any other citizen ; I 
honor its exploits in every conflict in which we have been engaged ; but 



510 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

if anything can bring reproach, eternal disgrace, upon the navy, it seems 
to me that it is this precise transaction. First, we have Commander 
Chatard, who lets Walker pass him ; and then, seeming to have a glim- 
mering of an idea that he had mistaken his duty, he undertakes to 
recover his lost ground by resorting to all the little, petty, low, dirty, 
mean attempts that could be invented, to insult him in his camp ; 
evidently, by his own letter, trying to provoke Walker into a conflict, 
that he might have an excuse to fire upon him. Then Commodore Pauld- 
ing comes up ; and he, a man of ripe years, who might be supposed to 
know something of his duty under the law, does what all the world 
knows, and what I need not repeat here, and does it in the most 
ungracious way. He writes to the government, admitting that he had 
no instructions to do what he did ; but, assuming that Walker and his 
men were pirates and outlaws, he writes such a letter as ought eternally 
to fix the seal of disgrace and condemnation on him. His letter, in my 
judgment, is a disgrace to the epaulets which he wears upon his 
shoulders. 

While I am on this point, I may as well say what I feel and think ; 
that it is high time our naval officers should be confined within the dis- 
charge of their duties according to law. There is too much disposition 
to exceed the law, by one and all of them. In my opinion, the Presi- 
dent — and no man knows better than he how reluctantly I say so ; but 
I will say what I think, let the consequences be to myself, or anybody 
else, what they may — would better have discharged his duty to the law, 
and to the best interests of the country, by pointedly rebuking the law- 
less act of Commodore Paulding, than by excusing it. Looking every- 
where, I see naval officers disposed to exceed their authority. You can- 
not send one of them abroad to perform the slightest commission, but 
he gets beyond his instructions, launches into the open sea of extrava- 
gance, and entails upon you any amount of expense and trouble. 

I am not going into that question ; but I could point out instance 
after instance where this has been the case. It is high time that naval 
officers should be restrained within the letter of their instructions, and 
made to feel and know that they must obey the law. The way to make 
them do it, is not to follow out the advice of the President, and say 
that the act of Paulding was in violation of the law and then wink at 
it. That will but encourage a still further violation of the law. I would 
prefer seeing it punished — summarily and properly punished. It is one 
of those offences against the laws of the country which demand punish- 
ment. The President cannot excuse it on the ground that Nicaragua 
does not complain. It is not for us to violate our laws when Nicaragua 
does not complain, and to excuse them when she does complain. Our 
duty is to the law. If Paulding has discharged his duty according to 
the law, let him be applauded; and if he has not, let him be con- 
demned. 

It is no excuse to me, to say that Nicaragua does not complain. That 
suggestion opens up a wide field for investigation. I might reply that 
Walker had been invited into that country to take part in a civil war, 
that the party with whom he acted had triumphed, that he was lawfully 
elected president of the republic of Nicaragua, that his government de 
facto had been recognised by the United States ; and that, by the inter- 
ference of another naval officer, he had been brought out of the country. 



COMMODORE PAULDING'S ARREST OF WALKER. 511 

True, it was said then that it was a matter of grace to him. How that 
was, I am not now going to inquire. But he was here claiming to be 

the rightful president of the republic of Nicaragua. Patriotic men 

not lawless and piratical men, as is now charged, but patriotic men in 

the Southern and Southwestern States, in the Western and the Northern 
States, said : " We will join you, and go and help you to snatch back 
again the rights which have been lawlessly taken from you." I might 
go into all that, and show that Walker, the recognised de facto President 
of Nicaragua, was but pursuing, as he had a legal right to do, the 
recovery of that which had been lawlessly taken from him when he was 
thus arrested. But all that is unnecessary in this stage of the investi- 
gation, the present point being as to whether the President ought to say 
that Commodore Paulding had violated the law, and then undertake to 
excuse him for violating it. 

If this principle is to be carried out, the execution of the law is to 
depend on the outside opinion of the executors of the law. If the Ex- 
ecutive thinks the violation of the law, in that particular instance, was 
right, he is to wink at it and let it go unwhipped of punishment. He is 
only to punish the offender when, in his judgment, the thing was wroncr 
intrinsically. I do not understand that to be the proper obedience to 
law, nor a proper execution of law. If it can be shown that Paulding 
acted within the law, either written or unwritten, then let him be 
excused ; but if not, then let him be condemned, whether we applaud 
his conduct or not. I might think it a very good thing to have some 
fellow killed that I thought better out of the world than in it ; but 
suppose the assassin goes and puts the dagger in his heart ; am I, as 
judge on the bench, to say to him, "My dear fellow, I cannot exactly 
say you did right in killing him, because you violated the law ; but, 
inasmuch as I think the rascal ought to have been killed, I will let you 
go." That will not do. Such logic as that brings us to the end of" all 



law. 



For these and other reasons which I may take occasion to assign 
hereafter, I cannot endorse this message. I am exceedingly reluctant 
to dissent from any views expressed by the President, and especially so 
in the present condition of our public affairs ; but I care not who is 
president ; when doctrines are promulgated in antagonism to what I 
believe to be right, I will express the conviction of my own mind. 

Upon this point I will do the senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] a 
little justice. While I did not agree with him in anything that he said, 
I did admire his spunk in standing up and saying plump out what he 
thought on the Kansas question. 

On the same day Mr. Brown continued the debate as follows: — 

Mr. Brown. On the subject of Captain Paulding's ancestry I desire 
to say a Avord. He is said to be the son of the Paulding who took part 
in the arrest of Andr^. 

Mi\ Mallory. I did not say he was the son. 

Mr. Brown. I have seen it stated elsewhere that he claimed to be 
the son. I do not know what other illustrious ancestors he may have 
had to which the senator alluded. 

Mr. Mallory. He is descended from the Paulding that captured 
Andrd. What relation he is I do not pretend to say. 



512 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Mr. Brown. Whether he be a son or grandson, a nephew or grand- 
nephew, has, in my judgment, nothing on earth to do with this inquiry. 
His ancestor did well, did nobly. The question we have to inquire into 
, now, is as to what Paulding himself has done. Has he acted within the 
limits of law ? I understand the senator from Florida to admit that he 
has not ; and yet he undertakes to excuse him on the ground of his 
illustrious ancestry. 

Mr. Mallory. My friend will excuse me for interrupting him. In 
the few remarks he addressed to the Senate he said that in making the 
arrest Commodore Paulding had acted in a most ungracious manner, 
and that he had entailed disgrace on his epaulets in doing so. That he 
had performed the arrest in an ungracious manner, which I presume to 
mean an ungentleraanly, or unhandsome, or rude manner. 

Mr. Brown. I would ask my friend from Florida whether he has 
carefully read the letter of Commodore Paulding to the government, in 
which he charges piracy, lawlessness, buccaneering, and everything else 
in the whole catalogue of naval offences against Walker and his men. 

Now, sir, I have the same authority for saying that the men who were 
under General Walker's command had rendered distinguished services 
to this country, which the senator has for saying that the ancestors of 
Paulding had rendered essential service. I undertake to say that there 
were men in that command who not only risked their lives, but shed 
their blood in defence of the American flag, in the late war with Mexico ; 
and yet this man Paulding, whose highest claim seems to be that he has 
descended from illustrious ancestors, has the audacity, in an ofiicial com- 
munication to the government, to charge these men with piracy, with 
buccaneering, with lawlessness, and with all the ofl"ences in the whole 
catalogue of crimes. Upon what evidence ? Where is the authority 
upon which these charges are based ? Is there any indictment against 
Walker for piracy ? Is there any charge against him for piracy ? Does 
it rest upon anything else than the mere declaration of Commodore 
Paulding, in an official communication which has been sent to Congress 
by the President, thus to be incorporated into the everlasting archives 
of the government, to live through all time to come ? 

I say that when Commodore Paulding so far forgets his duty as thus 
lightly to charge piracy, and buccaneering, and lawlessness, and other 
high off"ences, against men who have distinguished themselves in the 
» military service of the country, he does disgrace his epaulets, and ought 
to have them torn from his shoulders. If there be any indictment 
against Walker or any man under his command, show it, point to the 
court where it is ; but if there be not, upon what authority does this 
man Paulding dare to arraign him before the American people and the 
world as a pirate ? I know not how far my judgment may weigh against 
that of the descendant of the Paulding who captured Andr^, but what- 
ever it is worth, I venture it here, that Walker is not only not a pirate, 
not a buccaneer, but that he is a man that has violated no law. Put 
him upon his trial before a fair jury of the country, and my life upon it 
he will be acquitted. He will be acquitted in Louisiana ; he will be 
acquitted in Florida ; he will be acquitted in New York ; wherever he 
can get a fair and impartial trial according to the laws of the country, 
he will be set at liberty. My complaint against Paulding is, that he 
makes the charge without proof; and my complaint against the Presi- 



COMMODORE PAULDING'S ARREST OF WALKER. 513 

dent is, that he sends it to the Senate and gives to it the high endorse- 
ment of the chief magistrate of this great nation. 

The senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DoolittleJ says that Walker is 
charged with levying war against a foreign government. By whom is 
he so charged ? Where is the evidence of it ? Is there an indictment 
pending ? Is there a well-established charge anywhere but by public 
rumor ? I meet the charge by saying that Walker was but endeavoring, 
as others have done, to recapture his lost rights. After Louis Philippe 
was expelled from France, if he had undertaken to regain his throne, 
this government would have had the same right to interpose and arrest 
him that it had to interpose and arrest Walker. Louis Philippe was 
driven out by violence. If he had attempted to go back to France to 
regain his lost privileges, no one would have pretended that the govern- 
ment of the United States had a right, by military force, to arrest him ; 
yet, for the life of me, I cannot see the diiFerence between an arrest in 
that case and the one before us. 

But, says the senator from Wisconsin, Walker was a citizen of the 
United States. That he was a native of the United States, I grant ; but 
did he claim the protection of your flag — did he claim to be a citizen of 
the United States ? So far from it, he was arrested under the flag of 
Nicaragua. If he had been arrested under the flag of the United States 
— under the banner of the stars and stripes — there would have been 
some excuse for it ; the excuse might have been based on the ground 
that he was abusing the flag ; but he was under a foreign flag, and 
claimed its protection. Putting himself under that flag, proclaimed to 
all the world that he had expatriated himself, as he had a right to do. 
He was not then a citizen of the United States, nor did he claim to be. 

I understand that while I was temporarily absent from the Senate 
some time ago, the senator from New York expressed some very errone- 
ous views in reference to the positions I took in the few remarks which 
I had the honor to submit in the early part of this discussion. What I 
said, if not with entire distinctness, I had hoped with sufficient clearness 
to be understood, was, that a citizen of the United States has a right to 
expatriate himself, that there was no power in the executive government 
to prevent his doing so, and that in leaving the country he had the right 
to bear arms. These propositions being true, I illustrated them in my 
own person by saying that I had the right to shoulder my musket and 
shake hands with the President, telling him I was going to Nicaragua, 
or any other country, to take part in a civil war, and that he had no 
right to molest me. I said every other citizen of the republic had pre- 
cisely the same right. 

I have supposed heretofore it was one of the chief glories of this 
country, that our people did take part in these contests for liberty. The 
earliest and most brilliant efi"orts of "the great commoner," the illustri- 
ous Clay, were the powerful orations which he pronounced in the House 
of Representatives in favor of the South American states, then strug- 
gling to throw ofi" the despotism of Spain. His speeches in defence of 
Grecian liberty were no less distinguished for eloquence and intensity of 
patriotism. What did all those speeches mean if they were not an 
appeal to the young and ardent patriotism of Americans to go and help 
to fight those battles for liberty ? Who does not recollect the struggle 
in Texas, when the illustrious sage of the hermitage, obeying the laws 
33 



514 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

of his country forbidding the fitting out of expeditions, issued his pro- 
clamations ? He determined to enforce the law, but he never dreamed, 
and, with all his heroism, never dared to arrest any citizen wbo bad 
armed himself with a view to go and join my venerable friend [Mr. 
Houston], then fighting the battle of liberty in Texas. Did Jackson 
ever dare to usurp power ? I appeal to you, sir, and to senators around 
me, what would have been thought of the " old usurper," as his enemies 
called him — Andrew Jackson — if he had dared to send a naval force to 
arrest Sam Houston, President of Texas, and bring him back to the 
United States ? Would there not have been a universal burst of indig- 
nation throughout the republic ? If it might not have been done under 
Jackson, I want to know by what warrant the same thing is done under 
the rule of James Buchanan. 

Mr. Mallory. I did not rise to enter into the debate, as I before 
observed, and expressed no opinion on any question involved, except the 
remarks of my friend from Mississippi. His remarks now show that I 
have vindicated Commodore Paulding from his assertion that he did not 
make this arrest ungraciously, and that he did not, by the arrest or its 
manner, entail disgrace on his epaulets. I do not defend the assertions 
of his letter. I concede it is bad taste in any ofiicial to use epithets 
towards others ; it will not strengthen his case. But my friend from 
Mississippi will recollect that there is a high example in the authority 
of the Commander-in-Chief of the armies and navies of the United 
States, the President himself, a few years ago. 

Mr. Brown. I beg to correct my friend. I hope I was not under- 
stood as speaking of the ungracious conduct, in that particular, of Com- 
modore Paulding. I spoke of the ungracious conduct of Commander 
Chatard, who wrote insulting, taunting, insolent notes to Walker, 
meaning nothing but to provoke him into a conflict ; but I did not, in 
that connection, charge like conduct on Commodore Paulding. When 
I came to speak of his note, or of his official communication to the 
government, in which he spoke of Walker and his men as being pirates 
and outlaws, marauders, buccaneers, and all that, then I characterized 
him as having done an act, the character of which I mentioned. 

In reply to Mr. Pearce of Maryland Mr. Brown said : — 
My friend from Maryland seems to assume the whole matter in 
controversy, that Walker came to the United States to set up an 
expedition. That I deny. I deny that he set up any expedition 
within the limits of the United States ; and if there be proof of it, I 
call for the proof from those who charge the fact. What I admit is, that 
Walker came here, complained, as any foreigner had a right to do — as 
Kossuth did, and as other men have done — of their wrongs, and that 
those who sympathize with him, as they had the right to do, joined his 
standard and went beyond the limits of the United States, without get- 
ting out an expedition, each man acting upon his own responsibility, and 
each one avoiding for himself any infraction of the law. If there was 
an expedition fitted out in the United States, I admit there was a viola- 
tion of the laws ; but if my friend from Maryland charges it, I ask for 
the proof — not that I would demand any proof of any charge of his ; but, 
technically, I ask on what ground he bases the charge. 



COMMODORE PAULDING'S ARREST OF WALKER. 515 

On the 21st of January, 1858, Mr. Brown continued the debate in 
reply to Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, as follows : — 

I have listened to the speech of the honorable senator from Wisconsin 
with some pleasure and some profit. I gave notice the other day of ray 
purpose to move an amendment to his resolution. That amendment will 
indicate distinctly to the Senate how far I differ from the senator who 
has just resumed his seat. I send it to the table, and ask to have it 
read. 

The secretary read the proposed amendment, which is to strike out 
all after the resolving clause, and insert the following : — 

That Congress has heard with surprise of the arrest of William "Walker, and about 
one hundred and fifty other prisoners, at Punta Arenas, in Nicaragua, by Hiram 
Paulding, commanding United States naval squadron, on the 8th day of December, 
1857 ; and seeing that said act was in violation of the territorial sovereignty of a 
friendly power, and not sanctioned by any existing law. Congress disavows it; and 
being officially notified that said Paulding acted without instructions from the Presi- 
dent or the Secretary of the Navy, Congress expresses its condemnation of his con- 
duct in this regard. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President, if I had any prepared, set speech to 
make, I should, of course, prefer making it on some other day than this ; 
but I have not. What I have to say can as well be expressed in five or 
ten minutes as in as many hours. It will be seen that the proposition 
which I submit contains very few and very plain suggestions. I first 
assert, in the amendment, that Congress has heard with surprise of the 
arrest of William Walker and his associates, about one hundred and 
fifty in number, without giving to Mr, Walker any style. I do not even 
call him General Walker. I do not give to the people who were with 
him a habitation anywhere, but speak of them as they were — as persona. 
I claim that that is a truism in point of fact, that when the intelligence 
reached us, Congress was surprised. Is there a man who hears me now 
that does not respond to that declaration, that he was surprised by the 
intelligence that this arrest had been made ? 

When I take the ground that it was done in violation of the territorial 
sovereignty of Nicaragua, I do not undertake to locate the sovereignty, 
or to give it any particular designation or direction. I simply take the 
ground that the sovereignty is somewhere ; that it does not belong to us; 
that by invading it we violated it. Nicaragua is, beyond all question, 
no part of the United States. It is a foreign territory. Commodore 
Paulding, with an armed force, landed on the shores and made arrests, 
in violation of the sovereignty of that territory. I care not whether the 
sovereignty be in William Walker, as its legitimate President, or in the 
party who now claim it, or anybody else. It is a discovered country ; 
the sovereignty rests somewhere, but beyond all dispute it is not in the 
United States. When we landed there with an armed force, and made 
arrests, we violated the sovereignty. I care not in whose person it may 
exist, or who has the right to control it for the time being. 

The next proposition is, that the act was not sanctioned by any exist- 
ing law. I listened to the speech of the honorable senator from Wis- 
consin, to hear under what law this act of Commodore Paulding was to 
be justified. The President tells us, in the very outset of his message, 
that it was a "grave error" on the part of Commodore Paulding. He 
does not pretend, in his message, to justify it on any legal grounds — 



51G ALBERT G. BROWN. 

although he undertakes to palliate the offence, as I conceive it to be, of 
the commodore. I have listened, but I have listened in vain, for a sug- 
gestion from some quarter, which would show that there was lawful 
authority for this act. The senator, it is true, has read to us from 
Vattel and Puffendorf, and other writers on international law, but all his 
authorities point to cases not at all like this. He has read us no 
authority from Puffendorf, or Vattel, or any other writer on international 
law, nor can he, which shows that you have the power to land on the 
shores of a friendly country and make arrests ; to arrest the man who 
has been recognised as the president of the country by your own govern- 
ment, and bring him away. William Walker was recognised as the 
de facto President of the Republic of Nicaragua. If there has been a 
legitimate and fair election in the country, it was in the case of 
Mr. Walker. At an election fairly conducted he was chosen president 
of the republic ; but he is arrested by a military force from the United 
States, violently dragged from his country, brought here, and then set 
at liberty. 

I am glad that the senator, in his anxiety to give a medal to Com- 
modore Paulding, has not undertaken to justify the use of such violent 
expressions as that Walker and his men are pirates, and outlaws, and 
buccaneers. These expressions interlard the whole of the despatches 
from Commodore Paulding ; and he puts his own defence on the ground 
that these men were pirates. He who perhaps understands, and has 
studied most deeply the ground on which he stands, undertakes to defend 
himself on the hypothesis that Walker was a pirate, and that his fol- 
lowers were pirates. If they were, I demand to know by what authority 
the President of the nation turned loose a pirate in the city of Washing- 
ton? I demand to know by what authority one hundred and fifty 
pirates were turned loose in the peaceful streets of Norfolk ? The 
defence has failed — wretchedly failed. 

The President tells Congress in his message that he had no authority 
to hold Walker and his associates ; that they were amenable, if at all, 
to the judiciary of the country, and to nobody else. Great God ! sir, 
has the President no power to order a pirate to be held in custody ? 
Shall it be set up here in the Senate that the President can send an 
armed ship, or an armed fleet, to Nicaragua, arrest a pirate upon a 
foreign friendly soil, bring him to the United States, and when he gets 
him here, just at that point his power ceases? This is a wretched, 
miserable pretext. I am glad to see that the pretext that Walker was a 
pirate, that his followers were pirates, is not defended in the Senate. 
The President has rightfully enough ignored the charge. He thinks 
Walker has violated the law ; that he has committed a misdemeanor ; 
that he is responsible to the judiciary of the country, to whom he 
quietly hands him over. But all this does not come to the point sug- 
gested in my amendment, that this arrest was not sanctioned by any 
existing law. 

If it was in violation of the territorial sovereignty of a friendly power, 
and was not sanctioned by any existing law, then does not ray conclusion 
follow as a matter of course, that Congress must disavow it? That is 
all I ask you to do, up to that point ; to disavow that which is in viola- 
tion of the territorial sovereignty of a friendly power which is not pre- 



COMMODORE PAULDING'S ARREST OF WALKER. 517 

tended to be sustained by any existing law of your own country. I 
continue : — 

And being officially notified that said Paulding acted without instructions from 
the President or the Secretary of the Navy, Congress expresses its condemnation of 
his conduct in this regard. 

I put the condemnation expressly on the ground that his lawless act 
is disavowed by the President and the Secretary of the Navy. If they 
had avowed it, I would have directed my censure to a higher mark. If 
they had avowed it as an act of the government, I should have asked 
Congress to pass a vote of censure against the Secretary or the Presi- 
dent, or whoever gave the order. 

We have fallen, sir, upon strange times, and, in my judgment, have 
sadly departed from the lessons taught us in the earlier, and, I might 
add, better days of the republic. In 1822, Commodore Porter, who 
wore his epaulets and bore his sword with distinguished credit, was sent 
in the command of a squadron to the Gulf of Mexico, and ordered to 
cruise in the West Indies and the waters of the Gulf, in search of pirates. 
He was told, as the authority before me shows, clearly and distinctly, 
that he might pursue the pirates on land ; that they were the enemies 
of the human race ; that all civilized men were combined against them; 
but he was told, at the same time, that he must not pursue them in 
violation of the local authorities of any country. He might continue 
the pursuit until he should be bidden to give it up, and then he must 
cease. In 1824, it was ascertained by Lieutenant Piatt, one of the 
subordinate officers in that squadron, that a large quantity of goods had 
been stolen from Saint Thomas, and probably carried to Fuxardo, in the 
island of Porto Rico. Lieutenant Piatt pursued, and having accumu- 
lated such evidence as satisfied him that the goods were secreted ac 
Foxardo, he landed with a view of finding them. Some persons not 
authorized to arrest his progress, forbade his pursuing them ; but being 
informed by others that these were not persons in authority, and seeing, 
therefore, that he was not violating the letter of his instructions, he 
went forward. He found the officer of the port, who received him 
cordially. He found the alcalde, who received him cordially, and 
promised him assistance. While he was actually engaged in a search 
for the stolen goods — goods stolen, not by imaginary, but real pirates — 
the alcalde suddenly changed his mind, seized the lieutenant, thrust him 
into prison, and heaped divers insults and outrages upon him. Commo- 
dore Porter, receiving intelligence of these events, went to Foxardo and 
landed a military force, with a view of demanding reparation for the 
insult offered to the American flag, borne by Lieutenant Piatt, under 
the circumstances which I have named. It became necessary to spike 
some guns ; but no blood was shed, no gun was fired. The alcalde, on 
a sort of promise from Commodore Porter, that he should be protected 
in the exercise of his lawful authority, and that there was no purpose to 
subjugate him, at once came out and said frankly, " I have committed 
this outrage under compulsion, by orders." 

Commodore Porter was acting strictly within the letter of his instruc- 
tions, as he claimed, and as I believe, from very recent investigations of 
all the papers ; but it suited the Spanish authorities to complain of him. 
He was at once relieved from his command, and ordered home to be put 
upon trial. After being detained here for weeks and weeks, the Admi- 



r^ 



518 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

nistration in the mean time having undergone a change, Mr. Monroe 
having gone out and Mr. John Quincj Adams having come in, Commo- 
dore Porter complained of the delay. He filed a letter with the Presi- 
dent, and perhaps two or three with the Secretary of the Navy, com- 
plaining of the delay which had occurred in his trial. Finally, he was 
put on his trial before a naval court-martial. He was convicted and 
sentenced to six months' dismissal from the service of the United States. 
Here Avas a gallant officer, covered over with scars, entitled to stars, 
garters, and medals, arrested by the order of his government because 
he had landed upon a friendly soil, and undertaken to make arrests, not 
of imaginary, but real pirates — people who were confessed to be so ; not 
, only relieved of his command, but brought back to the United States in 
disgrace, put upon his trial, convicted, and sentenced. 

While I do not stand here to defend the harsh proceedings in that 
case, I instance it for the purpose of showing what measure of justice 
was meted out in the earlier days of the republic, in comparison with 
that which the senator from Wisconsin proposes to mete out to Commo- 
dore Paulding. Here was a man acting within the letter of his instruc- 
tions ; but the Administration had undergone a change. He had been 
told that these people were the enemies of all mankind. President 
Monroe had two or three times complained in his communications to 
Congress of the want of efficiency in the Spanish authorities. He had 
called on Congress to nerve the arm of the Executive to chastise these 
depredations on our commerce in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 
Mr. Monroe had declared to Commodore Porter, through Mr. Smith 
Thompson, then Secretary of the Navy, in express terms, that in pur- 
suing the pirate he might land upon any soil, but that he must not — 
mark you — continue the pursuit after persons in authority should forbid 
his doing so. 

Lieutenant Piatt claimed that he had not violated that instruction ; 
that he had lived up precisely to the very letter of it ; that when told by 
persons not in authority to cease the pursuit, he had determined to do it 
until he was informed that these people were not authorized to give any 
such command ; that he then proceeded, that he was received cordially 
by the commander of the port and by the alcalde, persons in authority, 
who promised him their assistance; and then in the midst of all that he 
was thrown into prison, charged himself with being a pirate, his flag 
insulted, and himself derided. Then Commodore Porter landed, as I 
have said before, for the purpose of chastising this insolence, and was 
promptly met by an apology. On these general facts, I say again, he 
was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced, and the sentence was 
carried into execution. Now, with a case before us, where a commodore, 
according to the Secretary of the Navy and the President, is acting 
clearly beyond his instructions, without authority, landing upon a foreign 
soil, without any sort of shadow of authority from the President or 
Secretary, making important arrests, we are called upon to vote him a 
medal. 

There is another point in this transaction : Commodore Porter was 
tried, among other things, for insubordination in writing insolent letters 
to the President and Secretary of the Navy. I have the letters before 
me, but do not care to weary the Senate by reading them ; but let 
senators take the letters of Commodore Porter in 1824 and 1825, and 



COMMODORE TAULDING'S ARREST OF WALKER. 519 

compare them with the insolent productions of Commodore Paulding 
addressed to the present Secretary of the Navy ; and answer mo whether, 
if Porter was tried, convicted, and sentenced for writing such letters as 
he wrote, what ought to be done with Commodore Paulding for writing 
such as he has written ? I am not here to say that Paulding ought to 
he punished for writing an insolent letter to the Secretary of the Navy. 
If the Secretary does not think proper to vindicate himself, he may go 
unvindicated ; I shall not stand here in his defence. What I say is, 
that we are falling upon strange times, when a commodore — a flag-officer 
— can write to the Secretary of the Nav^^, and actually reprimand him. 
Take his letter and read it. It is an actual reprimand, addressed by a 
commodore in the service to the Secretary of the Navy, saying, in effect, 
" Sir, you fogy, you nincompoop, you are meddling with a matter you 
know nothing about ; let me and my command alone." The Secretary 
of the Navy writes back very complacently that he did not really mean 
to reprimand him ; but, after all, he thinks he has some authority ; and 
he rather thinks he has the right to dispose of the naval force as he 
pleases. It was not so in other days. If that letter had been addressed 
by Commodore Porter, or by any of the older commodores, to such a 
Secretary as Smith Thompson, or Samuel L. Southard, he would have 
been arrested, he would have been tried, he would have been convicted, 
and he would have been punished. If the present Secretary of the 
Navy does not think proper, however, to vindicate his official honor, he 
can let it alone ; it is none of my business. 

The question with which we have to deal is, whether we will vote 
Commodore Paulding a medal for these services. Just think of it. The 
joint resolution proposes that the President have a medal, with suitable 
devices, presented "as a testimonial of the high sense entertained by 
Congress of his gallant conduct." Great God ! Commodore Paulding, 
commanding as many, perhaps, as one hundred guns — I have not made 
the estimate of it, but there were certainly so many — having disposed 
of them at his leisure, with five or six hundred men, captures — what ? 
Walker and a handful of filibusters, who laid down their arms at the 
very first summons, and made no sort of resistance upon paper or any- 
where else, and Congress is called upon to vote a falsehood — that in this 
there was extraordinary gallantry ! I know very well that the commo- 
dore, writing home to the government, says that all his men behaved 
with extraordinary gallantry. Why, sir, I suppose the next thing will 
be, if our army should approach Salt Lake, and all the Mormon men 
should be av^^ay, and they should make a desperate charge and capture 
all the women, they must all have medals for their extraordinary gal- 
lantry. [Laughter.] It would be a much more gallant act than this act 
of Paulding, and one much more deserving a medal. 

I object to this resolution, because it is not true in point of fact. It 
is asking Congress to vote a falsehood — I beg the Senator's pardon ; I 
do not mean it in any offensive sense — but it is not true in point of fact 
that Paulding has displayed any gallantry. There was no occasion to 
display gallantry. Who does not know that at the very first instant, 
upon his summons. Walker and his men laid down their arms ? They 
did not even threaten to fire. The gallant heroes, with Commodore 
Paulding at their head, walked upon the shore and then walked back 



520 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

again ; and for that, Congress is to vote a deliberate historical falsehood, 
that they have displayed extraordinary gallantry ! 

Then their conduct is said to have been "judicious." Judicious in 
what ? Judicious in obeying his instructions ? I thought it was the 
duty of officers, naval and military — nay, sir, I thought it the first duty 
of a soldier — to obey the letter of his instructions. 

Then we are asked to assert that all this was done " in arresting a 
lawless military expedition set on foot in the United States." That 
assumes the whole matter in controversy. I undertake to say that the 
expedition was not lawless, and that no facts have been presented to 
show that it was so. Even the enthusiastic senator from "Wisconsin 
admits the right of expatriation. He would claim for himself at this 
very moment the right to leave the country, to swear allegiance to any 
other government ; and in going, to bear arms upon his person, would 
he not ? Is there a senator here ; is there an American citizen who 
listens to me at this moment, who would not claim for himself the right 
to leave his country, to expatriate himself, to swear allegiance to any 
other government, and in doing so, to bear arms on his person ? Did 
Walker, or any of those supposed to have been under his command, do 
anything more ? They went, and they went with arms in their hands, 
as they had a right to do, as the President admits, as every senator that 
has yet spoken admits, and as the senator from Wisconsin claims that 
he would have the right to do. Then, by what authority is it called 
lawless ? Have men acted in a lawless manner in doing that which all 
of us claim we have a right to do ? Is there any lawlessness in doing 
that which every man insists every American citizen has a right to do, 
and which you may not hinder under any existing law, and for the 
hinderance of which you never will pass any law througli Congress ? 

It is assumed that the expedition was set on foot in the United States. 
Where is the evidence of it, sir? Where is the proof? I deny it ! I say 
^ the fact is not as stated. I say there was no expedition, lawless or 
otherwise, set on foot in the United States. I admit that persons who 
were born under our flag and entitled to the protection of our laws, went 
voluntarily, every man acting on his own responsibility, with arms in 
their hands, with a view to assist what they claimed to be the rightful 
government of Nicaragua, in the person of William Walker. This, I 
claim, they had the right to do. It was no expedition set on foot. It 
was a body of American citizens, each man for himself, acting for him- 
self, and on his own responsibility, doing precisely what, under the law, 
he had a right to do. When they got beyond the limits of the United 
States, if they organized an expedition, and placed William Walker, or 
any other man, at the head of it, I claim that they did only what they 
had a right to do, and for the doing of which they were in no manner 
responsible to the laws of our country. If the doctrine can be main- 
tained, that we are overseers of the high seas, that our police jurisdiction 
extends everywhere — not only on our own soil, and within our own 
waters, but upon the high seas, even to Nicaragua, and every other 
country — then I grant you there may have been some violation of law ; 
but I claim that your jurisdiction is confined to the soil and to the single 
marine league, and for the purposes of the commercial law, three marine 
leagues ; and by no stretch of law, by no stretch of imagination, can 
you carry it beyond three marine leagues. It being admitted that 



INCREASE OF THE ARMY. 521 

Walker was not only off our soil, but without the jurisdiction of the 
waters over which we hold control, not only not upon the water, but 
actually upon the soil of a foreign country; and there being no evidence 
that any expedition was fitted out or set on foot on our soil, within our 
jurisdiction, or on the high seas ; and the expedition, if it existed at all, 
was found on a foreign soil, then I claim that that declaration in the 
senator's resolution, is not true in point of fact. It is a simple, naked 
declaration, which Congress is asked to vote, but which is not sustained 
by any evidence on God's earth. 

I said, Mr. President, at the outset, that I had no regular prepared 
speech to make. In reference to the case of Commodore Porter, to 
which I have alluded, I have forborne to read the correspondence, the 
letters, and instructions, because I did not care to consume the time of 
the Senate ; but the facts are as I have stated them, as proven by the 
volume before me, to which I have turned my attention, and given some 
study. If we are to vote Commodore Paulding a medal, I hope it will 
be done for reasons which are at least true in themselves. If we are to 
vote censure against him, I want it to be done for reasons which are true. 
If I have not stated the reasons correctly in my amendment, on the 
suggestion of any senator I will modify or change them. I think they 
are rigidly correct, strictly and emphatically correct in every particular. 
I intended they should be so. If I am mistaken, I shall listen to the 
suggestion of any senator, and change it until the facts and the legal 
positions are stated correctly ; but I cannot stand by quietly and see a 
proposition introduced and gravely urged here, to vote a medal to an 
officer for violating the laws of his country, for doing that Avhich the 
President tells us was a "grave error," and which has not been, and 
cannot be, defended on any grounds, legal or moral. 



INCREASE OF THE ARMY. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 1, 1851, IN 

FAVOR OF AN INCREASE OF THE MILITARY DEPARTMENT, TO 

PUT DOWN INDIAN HOSTILITIES IN THE WEST. 

It is with extreme diffidence, Mr. President, that I venture to express 
any opinion in reference to a matter like this. It has already passed 
under the supervision of gentlemen who are qualified, by education and 
by practice, to give opinions in reference to it ; and it is more for the 
purpose of expressing my concurrence in the opinions of others, than 
to express any convictions of my own, that I have taken the floor at 
this time. 

I know, very well, sir, that if we fail to act here, and act efficiently, 
we assume a very high responsibility. Last year the President, and the 
Secretary of War, gave us fair warning that the military establishment 
of the country was too small, too feeble, to protect our frontiers. After 
a session of nine months, we adjourned without having done anything 
towards its increase. This year we are told in the official papers from 



522 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the President, and the head of the War Department, in terms too dis- 
tinct to be mistaken, that, in consequence of our neglect to follow out 
their recommendation, valuable lives have been sacrificed upon the 
frontier, emigrants to California and to the territories have been mur- 
dered in cold blood; our little military force at Fort Laramie was 
utterly destroyed ; other disasters have overtaken us, and our arms have 
been disgraced and literally rendered contemptible in the eyes of the 
Indians. I do not pretend that I state the case precisely as it is stated 
by the Executive ; but this is the conclusion which must impress itself 
upon your minds, if you study the documents. Now, sir, we have been 
asked to do what ? Simply to increase the military establishment to 
the amount proposed by my friend from Illinois, in the amendment 
which has just been agreed to? No, sir; we have been asked to 
increase the permanent military establishment of the country ; and we 
have been asked, in addition to that, by the President and the Secretary 
of War together, to raise three thousand volunteers to meet the present 
exigencies. The question arises, do we mean to do that ? I understand 
now, sir, that the volunteer proposition has been withdrawn by the Com- 
mittee on Military Affairs — withdrawn because it seemed to receive no 

favor at the hands of the Senate. 

********* 

What I want to do is to follow out, as nearly as I can, the recom- 
mendation of the President and the Secretary of War upon this matter. 
A good deal has been said here about registering the edicts of the Pre- 
sident and of the executive officers. I think, sir, considering how long 
I have been here, I have given about as many evidences that I am 
indisposed to register mere edicts as any other senator. But here is an 
instance in which we are bound to presume that the Secretary of War 
understands our relations with the Indian tribes better than we can 
possibly understand them. Why? Because it is the business of his 
department to understand them. He has to post the army, and so to 
govern it as that it shall be most efficient in the defence of our frontier. 

I think, under such circumstances, that very great deference is due to 
his views upon this subject. If we fail, in a mere spirit of obstinacy, 
or from any other cause, to vote the number of men which, we are told 
by the President and head of the War Department, is necessary to pro- 
tect our frontier, how shall we answer to the country in case of disaster ? 
When the Indian shall light up his camp-fires, draw his scalping-knife 
and tomahawk, and commence a war of universal murder upon our 
frontiers ; when the wail of women and children shall come up to the 
Senate, appealing to us, what answer shall we make ? That, because 
we were careful of trusting the Department to which the responsibility 
properly belongs, we refused to vote the necessary force to defend them. 
Sir, I shall, by my vote here, take no such responsibility. When the 
ghosts of murdered women and children stalk into this chamber, I mean 
to have it in my power to say : — 

" Thou canst not say, I did it ; never shake 
Thy gory locks at me." 

If others are willing to take the responsibility of denying the means 
of defence, then let the blood of our murdered people be upon their 
skirts. But we are told that if we send a volunteer force, a war will be 



INCREASE OF THE ARMY. 523 

almost inevitable. Sir, I do not know whether that is true or not. I 
do not profess to be a military man. I do not know which is the more 
efficient force. I do not know Avhich could be best controlled in the 
field ; but I do know that the President of the United States informed 
us, in a message which he sent to us a few days ago, that a volunteer 
force is the one which he wants. I do know that the Secretary of War 
has called upon us for three thousand volunteers, and that he has stated 
to us that it is the only force which can be called into the field in time 
to meet the approaching emergency. He has told us that these Indians 
are combining. He has stated the effective Indian force, if my recol- 
lection serves me correctly, to be forty thousand men, and that hostili- 
ties, in all probability, will commence early in the spring. What are 
you doing ? Are you voting him the force which he says is absolutely 
necessary for the protection of your frontiers? No, sir; you are with- 
holding that force, and saying to him : — " If you send out the volunteers, 
then we shall inevitably have war." Thus, you are not providing for the 
emergency which he tells you is at your door. 

I have not read the extracts from the message, and other papei'S 
bearing upon this point ; but I have stated their contents correctly. We 
are officially notified that the regular army, though it were entirely full, 
would not answer the present purpose ; whereas, the Secretary of W^ar 
tells us in his annual communication, it now numbers only about eleven 
thousand men, including officers and soldiers. If it were entirely full it 
would only be a little over fourteen thousand, according to his calcula- 
tion, and about eleven thousand effective force is all that you really 
have at any time. He tells you in plain and distinct terms that this 
force is insufficient to protect your eight thousand miles of frontier. 
The work is more than they can perform ; and he asks for a permanent 
defence of the frontier, a permanent increase in the military force of the 
country. 

He tells you in plain terms, and the President has endorsed that 
statement — that the volunteer force is absolutely necessary to meet the 
present emergencies. Now, let me ask the Senate again, if you refuse 
to vote this force, and if, in the early spring, the Indians shall fall upon 
your frontier and murder your women and children, pillage your towns, 
and devastate, and lay waste the whole frontier, how shall you answer 
to your constituents for the manner in which you refused to carry out 
the recommendations of the executive government, and the following 
out of which recommendation we are told is absolutely necessary to 
keep peace there ? 

Mr. President, I think well of the proposition to send out a commis- 
sioner. I think well of it, because it strikes my judgment as being 
right, and because it is backed by the experience of the mover of the 
proposition, and the veritable senator from Michigan, whose familiarity 
with Indian affairs is greater than, I trust in God, mine will ever be. I 
would send such a commission. I would send with it a sufficient military 
force to protect it in its negotiations. I would, at the same time, 
authorize the President of the United States to prepare immediately a 
military force, or a volunteer force, to meet the emergency if it should 
arise. I am not, in my conscience, and according to my honest convic- 
tions, permitted to receive mere declarations of opinions, coming from 
senators here, in opposition to the expressed opinion of the executive 



524 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

government, and upon a question of this kind. I am bound to presume 
that the Secretary of War understands his duties better than any one 
else can understand them. This I say without any sort of disparagement 
to the intelligence and military learning of any gentleman here or 
elsewhere. If it be the business of one man to study one subject ; if 
he lend to it the whole energies of his mind, am I saying too much 
when I declare that, if I had to follow the lead of any one, I would 
rather follow the lead of such a man than one of equal intelligence, 
whose attention is divided among a hundred different subjects ? 

Considering that the proposition for raising the three thousand volun- 
teers had been withdrawn, I had prepared an amendment, and meant to 
move it as an addition to that of the senator from Illinois, which has 
just been agreed to. 

I propose the following amendment : — 

"And be it further enacted. That to meet any sudden emergency, growing out of 
our relations with the Indian tribes, the President is authorized to accept the services 
of any number not exceeding three thousand volunteers, to be organized into compa- 
nies, squadrons, and battalions, and to serve for a period of eighteen months, unless 
sooner discharged ; the said volunteers to be armed and equipped, and to serve on 
horse or on foot, as the Secretary of War, with the concurrence of the President, may 
direct. 

" And be it further enacted, That the said volunteers shall receive the same pay 
and emoluments in all respects as were paid to the same class of volunteers in the 
service of the United States, in the war with Mexico." 

I am not going to make a speech, because I know the Senate is tired 
of that sort of work ; but I want to show, before the vote is taken upon 
the amendment, by reading a very few extracts from the President's 
message, and the communication of the Secretary of War, how near 
the amendment approaches to their recommendation. The Secretary 
of War, in his letter dated January 15, 1855, says : — 

" Should the proposed increase — [that is, the permanent increase] — of the army be 
authorized during the present session, it is hoped that the two additional regiments 
of cavalry may be organized, mounted, and put in position to relieve the volunteers 
sometime during the summer or fall ; and the two regiments of infantry recruited 
and organized for service in the department of the Pacific, and on our extreme north- 
western frontiei*, where troops are greatly needed." 

If I understand, the amendment which we have adopted, on the 
motion of the senator from Illinois, meets that portion of the recom- 
mendation. It will raise the two regiments of cavalry and two regiments 
of infantry. So far so good. What are we told further ? After being 
admonished that we have been called upon time and again to provide for 
this emergency, the Secretary says : — 

" Had the increase of the army, which was urged in my report of December 1853, 
been, at an earlier period, authorized, the force at the disposal of the department 
would have been sufficient to prevent these combinations, [that is, the combinations 
among the Indians], and, in all probability, would have preserved the lives of many 
valuable citizens from Indian massacre. This measure, however, has not been acted 
on, and at this advanced period, should the bills now pending in Congress be passed, 
it will be found too late to organize a regular enlisted force, and place it in position 
in season to prevent the anticipated attack, or to suppress it until after much mischief 
shall have been done." 

I read that to show to the Senate that the Secretary of War does not 
look to these two regiments of infantry and two of cavalry to meet the 
emergency which he has called upon us to provide against, for he tells you 



INCREASE OF THE ARMY. 525 

in plain language that if you authorize that increase " now," that is, on 
the 15th of January, 1855, it will be too late to meet the emergency 
which he anticipates. Then what further does he say ? Mark the 
strong language which he uses : — 

" The only course now left to the department, in anticipation of the proposed 
increase, is the employment of a volunteer force to cooperate with such of the regu- 
lar troops as can be collected for the present emergency, and it is accordingly recom- 
mended that authority be asked of Congress to call into service three thousand 
mounted volunteers, to be organized into companies, squadrons, and battalions, and 
to serve for a period of eighteen months, unless sooner discharged." 

The amendment which I propose is to carry out that recommenda- 
tion ; and is in the very words of it, with the single exception that I do 
not confine it to mounted men, but allow the President and Secretary to 
call out three thousand volunteers, or so many as may be necessary to 
meet the emergency, either as mounted men or as foot men. He may 
call out such portions of them as the emergency may seem to require. 
What does the President tell us ? 

" I transmit herewith a letter of the Secretary of War upon the subject of Indian 
hostilities. The employment of volunteer troops, as suggested by the Secretary, 
seems to afford the only practicable means of providing for the present emergency." 

Now, sir, is the recommendation of the President, and of the Secre- 
tary of War, to weigh not a feather upon our judgments in this matter? 
Are we totally to disregard the advice of those whose business it is to 
watch narrowly our relations with the Indian tribes, and tell us of ap- 
proaching emergencies ? If we intend to be governed by advice coming 
from the quarter pointed out by the law to give us advice, then the Sen- 
ate, I insist upon it, is bound to adopt the amendment which I have 
proposed, because in no other way can we meet the emergency which 
has called forth the special message from the Executive, and the re- 
commendation from the War Department. You are told, in plain 
language, that if you vote two regiments of infantry, and two regiments 
of cavalry, you will not have provided for the emergency. The only 
way, says the Secretary, the only way, adds the President, to meet the 
emergency, is to give us volunteers. As I stated before, I do not want 
to feel, nor do I want any one to charge upon me, that, by virtue of my 
having failed to discharge my whole duty, the blood of murdered women 
and children is on my skirts. The President and the Secretary have 
told us that this is the only means — mark the language — the only means 
of providing for the emergency ; yet we propose to legislate in total 
disregard of their recommendations ; and senators rise in their places 
and tell us they are not bound to register the edicts of the Executive. 
No, sir ; they are not ; nor am I. I would scorn to register any man's 
edicts, whether he were King, Emperor, Potentate, or President. But 
I stand up here to-day to say that the President of the United States 
and the Secretary of War must have information on this subject which 
we cannot have ; and I think, with all due deference to the superior 
judgment and greater cultivation of other gentlemen on this subject, it 
is rather a flippant way of disposing of so important a recommendation, 
to say that we will not register the edicts of the Executive. As I re- 
marked before, sir, and if there is anything of which I feel proud as an 
American senator, it is that, I have shown, on all proper occasions, that 
I do not register edicts. I dare to think and act for myself; and if I do 



526 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

SO, I shall certainly blame no other senator for it ; but I appeal to them if 
it is possible they can have the information on this subject which must be 
in the possession of the President and the Secretary of War — especially 
in the possession of the Secretary of War, whose sole business, almost, it 
is, I repeat again, officially to look into our relations with the Indians ? 

No other war is apprehended. The whole military force is upon the 
frontier ; and doubtless the Secretary keeps a close eye on the proceed- 
ings of the Indians, and of all others in that direction ; and when he 
tells us, on his responsibility as Secretary, and when the President of 
the nation endorses his declaration, that there is imminent danger of 
outrages upon the frontier, and that the only means of providing against 
them — yes, sir, the only means of providing against them — is the volun- 
teer force, shall we refuse to vote it ? Why ? Why, sir, upon the 
hypothesis, upon the bare supposition, that a volunteer force sent there 
will be more likely to bring on a war than anything which can occur. 
Sir, adopt the amendment, and the President will not send his volunteer 
force there to bring on a war; if he does, he will violate the law which 
will give the volunteer force. The amendment says that, to provide for 
any sudden emergency which may arise out of our relations with the 
Indian tribes, the President be authorized to accept the services of the 
volunteers. I take it for granted, then, that there must be, under the 
language of that amendment, a pre-existing emergency ; hostilities 
must actually have commenced before he will be authorized to call out 
the force. He will not be authorized by it to call them out in antici- 
pation of outrages. 

But suppose that war shall commence ; suppose that the forty 
thousand Indians west of the Mississippi — and that is the number stated 
by the Secretary of War to be there — shall, in any considerable num- 
bers, combine to wage war upon our frontier during the long vacation 
of Congress, which is almost commencing, how is it to be checked by 
the slow process of recruiting, by the slow process of getting men into 
your army for the period of five years ? Why, sir, what amount of 
butchery, what amount of murder, what amount of rapine, may not be 
committed upon that frontier before you can put a military force there 
to protect it? 

My venerable friend from Michigan [Mr. Cass] says it is utterly im- 
possible to combine thirty thousand warriors ; they could not subsist, 
they would need the means of support. So they would if they were all 
in one army, but that is not the mode of Indian fighting, if I under- 
stand it. They go out in small bands and attack a single settlement, 
lay it waste, and then retreat. I have no expectation that they are 
going to meet you in large numbers, in bodies of ten, fifteen, and 
twenty thousand, if they go to war with you at all ; but in little bands, 
penetrating every point on the frontier. 

But, as I remarked, I did not get up to make a speech on the subject, 
but simply to call attention to the fact that the amendment is as much 
necessary to carry out the recommendation of the Executive as was the 
amendment offered by the senator from Illinois. 

y^ *5^ 3|> J^C ^^ t^ 3jC *(* 'I* 

Mr. Shields. Will the honorable senator permit me to ask him, in 
all seriousness, if he has the least idea that we can carry through four 
regiments and three thousand volunteers ? 



INCREASE OF THE ARMY. 527 

Mr. Brown. I do not know why we should not. That is what the 
government asks for. That is what we are assured is necessary for the 
defence of the country ; and, judging from the experience of the past, I 
am to conclude that whatever the government says is necessary for 
passing events, the Congress will vote. When majorities of the two 
Houses of Congress have been opposed to the existing Administration, 
they have not hesitated to vote the supplies necessary for the defence 
of the country ; and, shall I be told that now, with an overwhelming ma- 
jority in favor of the Administration in both branches of Congress, we 
shall refuse to vote those supplies ? I think my friend from Illinois has 
not looked into this thing with that astuteness which he usually employs 
in the investigation of questions. 

Every argument, every suggestion, which approaches my mind, tends 
to the conviction that Congress will, if the Administration stands up 
and insists that it is right we should do so, vote all that is asked. 
Four regiments as a part of the permanent establishment are asked for, 
and it is eminently proper, in view of the eight thousand miles of ex- 
posed frontier. You are told in plain English that your present estab- 
lishment, even if full, which it is not, would be insufficient for the de- 
fence of the frontier; and an additional force is asked. How much? 
Four regiments. My friend from Illinois proposed the four, and the 
Senate agreed to it. But, then, in addition to that, you are told that 
we want volunteers to meet an anticipated immediate emergency. The 
government is evidently looking to an outbreak early in the spring. It 
says it has not a sufficient permanent force, and it cannot avail itself of 
the proposed increase of four regiments in time to meet the anticipated 
emergency. The amendment does not require the President to call out 
three thousand volunteers. It imposes no obligation upon him to do it. 
It simply authorizes him to do it, if it shall be necessary, and, of course, 
to disband them as soon as they cease to be useful. What does he ask ? 

" Should the proposed increase of the army" — 

says the Secretary of War — and, mark you, his communication is en- 
dorsed by the President — 

" be authorized during the present session, it is hoped that the two additional regi- 
ments of cavalry may be organized, mounted, and put in position" — 

to do what, sir ? 

" to relieve the volunteers some time during the summer or fall." 

There you are plainly told that the two regiments of cavalry, provided 
for by the amendment of the senator from Illinois, are to relieve the 
volunteers who are to be called out on a sudden emergency. Very 
properly the Secretary of War has concluded that he cannot avail him- 
self of these regular troops in time to meet the emergency which he 
anticipates in the spring ; and he asks for volunteers to supply the service 
until he can get the regular force into it. He tells you in plain English, 
that as soon as he can organize the regiments, which you are now propo- 
sing to raise, he will send them to take the place of the volunteers ; and 
my amendment proposes to authorize him to dismiss those volunteers 
whenever he chooses to do it. He cannot take them for a longer period 
than eighteen months ; and he may discharge them when he pleases. 

Now, sir, if I can get the attention of my friend from Delaware [Mr. 



528 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Clayton] a moment — he, in common with other gentlemen, seems to an- 
ticipate that if jou send volunteers into the country you must necessa- 
rily have war. I do not anticipate that the volunteers are to be sent 
there until you do have war. There must be an actual subsisting state 
of war, before the emergency arises which authorizes the calling out of 
the troops ; but I repeat — for I take this to be a matter of vast import- 
ance to the country, one which the Senate ought well to consider — if 
the Secretary is right in his anticipation that the Indians are going to 
commence hostilities very early in the spring, and that the only way of 
meeting them is to call out volunteers, shall you not put that sort of 
force at his disposition which he asks for, in order to meet the emer- 
gency? My friend from Texas tells you that you cannot organize 
these regiments until the fall. Suppose war breaks out in the spring — 
then what ? Are the Indians to go unchecked through the whole sum- 
mer until you can organize the regular regiments which are to consti- 
tute a part of the military establishment of the country ? That is what 
the volunteers are asked for. If no emergency arises, the President 
will not call them out. 



ADMISSION OF MINNESOTA. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 1, 1858, ON THE 
ADMISSION OF MINNESOTA AS A STATE. 

I APPRECIATE, sir, the suggestion made by the senator from Illi- 
nois, that in discussing a question relating to the order of business, 
we had better not wander so far off as to discuss everything ; and 
in the remarks which I shall submit on this occasion, I shall not allude 
to Kansas further than is necessary to illustrate the views I have in 
reference to the point before us, which is, whether this subject ought to 
be considered now, or whether it had better be postponed to a subse- 
quent day. 

At the last session. Congress passed what was termed an enabling act 
for Minnesota ; such an act as the senator from Illinois has assured us 
was, in his judgment, absolutely necessary to enable a territory to form 
a constitution preparatory to coming into the Union as a state. He 
notified us, in his opening argument on the Kansas question, that a 
territory could do nothing which it was not authorized to do by the 
enabling act. If that be true, and there have been in Minnesota those 
irregularities which orentlemen on all hands admit to have existed, I sub- 
mit whether the enabling act amounts to anything. If it be necessary 
to pass an enabling act, there must exist a necessity for obeying the act 
after it is passed ; and that seems, in the case of Minnesota, not to have 
been done. What is the necessity for an enabling act, if the territorial 
legislature and the people of the territory do not regard the act after it 
is passed ? As I understand the case before us, there is no pretence 
that the enabling act has been obeyed by the authorities in Minnesota. 

But, says the senator from Massachusetts, these defects were cured 



ADMISSION OF MINNESOTA. 529 

by the subsequent action of the people. I say again, if there was a 
necessity for passing the enabling act, and nothing could be done till it 
was passed, then I want to know how it is that the people of a territory 
can cure defects which must have been fatal in themselves, except upon 
the ground which we take in reference to Kansas, that the power ema- 
nates from the people, that no enabling act is necessary, that when the 
people have acted they give vitality to the constitution, and whether it 
is made in obedience to an enabling act or not, is of no consequence ; 
and because of these arguments, we desire to see these two states brought 
in together. I want to know whether my honorable friend from Illinois 
means to take the ground that an enabling act is necessary, and when 
the act has been disregarded, vote for the admission of Minnesota, and 
then vote to exclude Kansas because in that case there has been no 
enabling act. When he does that, I wish him to do it altogether, so 
that the two things may stand in such juxtaposition that the whole 
country may see what he has done. 

I raise no question in reference to the enabling act, or that the people 
have disregarded it. I think the act was unnecessary. If I had known * 
the full tendency of it, I should have opposed it on other grounds than 
those on which I placed my opposition last year. I think, when the ' 
proper time comes, I shall be able to demonstrate that no such act is 
necessary. The senator from Illinois, however, takes a different ground. 
He says the act is necessary. Then, I say, admitting his premises, 
there is a necessity for obeying the act. What ! an enabling act totally 
disregarded, and defects cured afterwards by a popular vote, and admit 
the state ; and in the next breath tell us that Kansas cannot come in 
because there is no enabling act for her ! If there be such power in the 
people of Minnesota, that they may not only make a constitution with- 
out an enabling act, but in violation and total disregard to it, I shall 
want to know, at the proper time, why the same rule does not apply to 
Kansas? 

But the senator from Massachusetts tells us, as an argument why we 
ought to act at once on this subject, that the legislature has gone on, and 
that the governor chosen under this constitution not yet acted on by Con- 
gress, has been signing laws, and that a secretary, whose existence under 
the constitution has not been recognised, has been countersigning them. 
I should like to inquire of the senator if these laws are put in force 
there. Are the laws thus signed by a governor unknown to Congress, 
and unknown to the president in a territory, enforced in Minnesota ? 

Mr. Wilson. I cannot tell whether those laws are enforced or not. 
I have heard of laws, some dozen or twenty, I think, passed, not by the 
territorial legislature, but by the legislature elected under the constitu- 
tion, and signed by the secretary of the territory as acting governor. 

Mr. Douglas. He is acting governor in the absence of the governor 
of the territory. They are signed by him as acting governor. 

Mr. Brown. I did not precisely understand it. I supposed the 
governor elected under the new constitution had signed the laws. 

Mr. Douglas. No, sir ; but the secretary of the territory, as acting 
governor. 

Mr. Broavn. I did not know but that you were getting back to the 
days of Topeka, and that some such man as Governor Robinson was 
signing laws there. All I desire to add is in reference to a remark 
34 



530 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

uttered by the senator from New Hampshire. If Kansas is to be 
excluded, under the circumstances mentioned by the senator from Vir- 
ginia, he expressed the hope that the number of states never would 
exceed thirty-one. Am I mistaken ? 

Mr. Hale, Yes, sir. 

Mr. Brown. Will the senator repeat what he did say ? 

Mr. Hale. Yes, sir. I said that if the senator from Virginia was 
correct in announcing that that was to be a test, that the admission of 
Kansas, under all the objections which exist to her, was to be made the 
price of the admission of any state from any quarter, it would be a 
great while before our numerical number of states would exceed thirty- 
one. That is what I said, exactly. 

Mr. Brown. That varies it a little, but, I think, not a great deal. 
I can say, however, to the senator from New Hampshire, that, if one 
rule is to be applied to Kansas, she asking admission as a slave state, and 
she is to be excluded on that rule, and then, when the same rule applies 
to Minnesota, she is admitted notwithstanding the rule, the number of 
states never will exceed thirty-one. If you admit Minnesota and exclude 
Kansas, standing on the same principle, the spirit of our revolutionary 
fathers is utterly extinct if the government can last for one short twelve- 
month. I am sure you will not do it ; I entertain no serious apprehen- 
sion that you are about to do it ; but I do not understand this impatience, 
this exceeding anxiety to force Minnesota into the Union. When we 
know that Kansas will be asking for admission, as the senator from 
Virginia has already announced, certainly this week, and possibly 
to-morrow, why this exceeding haste to put Minnesota ahead? Do 
Republican senators hope to have two more senators on this floor to aid 
them in the exclusion of Kansas ? Is that what they are driving at ? 
If it be, I trust there is a firmness and decision on this side of the 
House that will resist to the bitter end the consummation of any such 
design. I know nothing of the views of the two honorable gentlemen 
asking admission on this floor as senators from Minnesota, I know not 
upon which side of this question they will vote. I know them to be 
honorable men, as all of us know them to be. But when I find such 
exceeding anxiety on the other side of the Chamber to bring them in, I 
. expect that gentlemen look for some aid and comfort from that quarter. 
They would hardly manifest such exceeding zeal in getting in two addi- 
tional senators, if they believed they would vote against them, when 
they came in, on the vital question of the session. I do not know that 
they will vote against us; I do not state that they will ; because, on that 
question, I know nothing ; but I Avould rather try this question before 
the old Senate, without the addition of any new material. Whether we 
can carry it is another proposition. What will result to the country if 
we fail, I pretend not to say. I hope I may not be misunderstood on 
that point. What I say is, that if you admit Minnesota, and Kansas 
applies substantially on the same grounds, you must not exclude her. 
If Kansas be excluded on account of irregularities in the formation of 
' her constitution, then let Minnesota be excluded for the same reason, 
and there will be peace all over the country. Nobody in my section 
will complain, for an instant, that you apply the same rule to the 
one that you apply to the other. Our point is, that you shall not apply 



ADMISSION OF MINNESOTA. 531 

one rule for the admission of a free state, and then exclude a state ask- 
ing admission as a slave state on the same principle. 

In a few remarks submitted by me in the earlier part of the debate, 
I assumed that the senator from Illinois had taken the ground that an 
enabling act was necessary to a territory in the formation of a state 
constitution. I based that declaration on his opening speech in the 
debate, in which I thought I was not mistaken ; and upon recurring to 
the speech I find that I was right. I do not know that the senator 
expressed himself in the precise language in which his maturer judgment 
would require him to express an opinion ; but in that speech, beyond all 
question he did take the ground that an enabling act was necessary. 
That speech is the one upon which I based my remark, and I was not 
aware that he had qualified it in such broad terms as he states to-day 
that he has done in the debates which followed. I have in my hand a 
copy of that speech. Said the senator : — 

" A territorial legislature possesses whatever power its organic act gives it, and no 
more. The organic act of Arkansas provided that the legislative power should be 
vested in the territorial legislature, the same as the organic act of Kansas provides 
that the legislative power and authority shall be vested in the legislature. But what 
is the extent of that legislative power ? It is to legislate for that territory under the 
organic act, and in obedience to it. It does not include any power to subvert the 
organic act under which it was brought into existence. It has the power to protect 
it, the power to execute it, the power to carry it into effect ; but it has no power to 
subvert, none to destroy : and hence that power can only be obtained by applying to 
Congress, the same authority wliich created the territory itself." 

Now, sir, according to the senator, when the territorial legislature 
provides for forming a constitution, that is an act of subversion. It is 
a subversion of the organic act, because it proposes the substitution of 
altogether a diff'erent form of government ; and I understood the senator 
to say distinctly in that speech that that could not be done (for that was 
the point in controversy) without applying directly to Congress for the 
power to do it ; in other words, that when the territorial government was 
to give way and a state government to be substituted, that could be done 
by the authority of Congress, and in no other manner. Upon another 
page of the same speech, the senator, after speaking of Arkansas again, 
used this language : — 

" If you apply these principles to the Kansas convention, you find that it had no 
power to do any act as a convention forming a government ; you find that the act 
calling it was null and void from the beginning; you find that the legislature could 
confer no power whatever on the convention." 

Why ? Because it had not been authorized by Congress ; there was 
no enabling act. The act of the legislature calling a convention, said 
the senator, was absolutely null and void from the beginning. It could 
be null and void but for one reason, and that was, that Congress had not 
authorized it. A territorial legislature can do nothing, said the senator, 
which the organic act does not authorize it to do ; and if it undertakes 
to substitute one form of government for another, it must come to the 
source of its power, to Congress. If I have been led into an error from 
not exactly keeping up with the debates in the Senate, or not reading 
or listening to all the speeches of the honorable senator, I hope I shall 
be excused. I based my remarks on the reading of this speech, which 
has unquestionably been more extensively read than any other speech 



k 



532 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

delivered at this session, by the senator or anybody else. I am glad he 
makes the correction. I am glad he comes forward, and says in terms 
■which are not to be mistaken — and it is to that point, and to vindicate 
myself, that I rose now — that an enabling act is not necessary. 

I return my thanks for that declaration. We have the senator's 
authority, and it is a potential authority in the country, that no enabling 
act is necessary. He goes further, and tells us that the act of submis- 
sion is not essential. Not only does he say now, and I thank him for 
saying so, I repeat again, in terms so plain that the whole country will 
understand, that an enabling act was not necessary — but he says that a 
submission of the constitution to the people was not necessary. That 
gets us clear of two troublesome propositions in the discussion of the 
Kansas question. Let us hear no more of this argument, then, any- 
Avhere. If the great chieftain gives up the question, I take it for granted 
that the subalterns will do it of course, and that hereafter we shall hear 
no more that Kansas does not present herself properly, because there 
was no enabling act ; and we shall hear no more complaint of Kansas 
that she did not submit her constitution to the people. 

The senator tells us to-day that neither the one nor the other was 
necessary. All we have to inquire now is, as to whether the constitu- 
tion she is about to present is the work of her people. What the people 
desire is to be expressed through the ballot-box. The will of the people, 
what they desire, is to be ascertained through the ballot-box ; and, as I 
now understand the question, if we shall be enabled to show that the 
people of Kansas, expressing their will through the ballot-box, under 
the forms of law, have organized this constitution, then we have nothi^^ 
beyond that to establish. Two points, I want it noted, are now out of 
the question — no enabling act is necessary, and no submission of the 
constitution to the people is necessary. All you are to learn is, whether 
it is the will of the people. 

Then the point which I submit to the senator for his reflection is simply 
this : Has the Avill of Kansas been ascertained in the mode and manner 
prescribed by the laws of the land ? Has the ballot-box been thrown 
open? Have the people been allowed to vote freely? If they have, 
then I claim that they stand on as good a footing before us to-day as 
does Minnesota. I ignore the proposition, if it shall be made from any 
quarter, that you shall compel them to vote whether they will or not. 
I am glad to see the issue narrowing down ; I am glad that we are to 
have no question except the simple one, is this the work of the people 
of Kansas ? We are not to be embarrassed with vague ideas about 
enabling acts, or about propositions to submit constitutions to the people. 
All that is out of the way from this time on. All we have to inquire is, 
as I said before, has this constitution been made by the people of Kan- 
sas, and have we ascertained that fact under the forms of the laws of 
Kansas ? I think, when the proper time comes, we shall be enabled to 
show that, in the mode pointed out by the law, the fact has been ascer- 
tained that the people of Kansas do sustain the constitution. 

On the 25th March, 1858, Mr. Brown continued the debate on the 
admission of Minnesota as follows : — 

I am very desirous to vote for the admission of Minnesota. We stand 
agreed, honorably bound, to admit her, and I shall regret exceedingly 



ADMISSION OF MINNESOTA. 533 

if anything be put into this bill which shall forbid me recording my 
vote in favor of it. I must say, in all sincerity, that I do not like this 
proposition to give Minnesota three representatives. I understand that 
you are to take a census of the population as a starting point, and then 
that your authority is to apportion your representation according to the 
population. I do not understand that it is within the province of Con- 
gress to guess the population of an old or a new state, and apportion its 
representation on mere guess-work. If you are going to guess for Min- 
nesota, why not guess for all the states ? If you were about to apportion 
the representation among other states, and I were to come in here as a 
representative, and say, the " census was incorrectly taken in my state; 
I tell you that I believe we have one hundred thousand people more 
than the census shows," are you to depart from the rule prescribed by 
the Constitution, and not to apportion the representation according to 
the census, but according to the guess of a representative from a state ? 
and if so, where are you to drift to ? But, sir, this does not happen to 
be guess-work coming from Minnesota ; it is guess-work outside of the 
state, and made up on the loosest possible calculation. One senator tells 
us the number of votes, and makes a calculation on the supposition that 
there are six members of a family to every voter, and thus he brings up 
the population to two hundred and forty thousand. What sort of a way 
of taking a census is that ? Did the framers f the Constitution ever 
dream of ascertaining the population of a state by any such rule ? 

Then, sir, when you come to look at the state, what is it ? A new 
state, to which young and enterprising men have gone, leaving the 
women and children in the older state, as they always do. Six to a 
family may be a very good estimate for Rhode Island, or Connecticut, 
or Virginia, but it is an over-estimate for any new country on the face 
of the earth ; because to such countries men go, and the women and 
children stay at home. You have got no such population there. This 
is a proposition to give to Minnesota a representation in the other House 
of Congress to which her population does not entitle her — a proposition 
to unhinge the balance of representation between the states, and to give 
to one state an advantage over the other states. I protest against it. 
The census shows that Minnesota has a population of a little over one 
hundred and forty thousand. Making a liberal estimate for the three 
counties from which no return has been made, she probably has one 
hundred and fifty thousand. For the first ninety-three thousand four 
hundred and twenty, she is clearly entitled to a representative. South 
Carolina has a representative for a fraction, and I believe California 
had one awarded to her for the largest fraction. The fraction in the 
case of Minnesota is even larger than that, and I am willing to vote her 
a representative for that fraction ; but I will not vote a representative, 
ex gratia, on a population which she has not got. 

Now that I ana on this subject, and as I do not care to worry the 
Senate again, I may say that, while I shall vote for the admission of 
this state, desire to do it, mean to do it, and will do it — if you do not 
put something in the bill that absolutely drives me away from it — I 
want to do it because I wish to keep faith upon the slavery question. 
Minnesota comes here and asks for admission as a free state. I would 
yield more than I would in another case, lest I might be suspected of 
having broken faith on that point. I want to vote for it ; I mean to do 



534 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

it ; I will do it, I saj again, unless I am driven from it ; but, in doing 
that, I wish now to say, that I am in no manner to be suspected of 
approving the constitution of Minnesota. If I thought my vote was 
thus to be construed, I never could record it in favor of the admission 
of this state. I do not approve her constitution. There is very much 
in it to which I object. 

I object to the very provision which leads to this debate — that a state 
shall undertake to say in her constitution how many representatives in 
Congress she will have. She has no right to say any such thing. I 
object to other features of her constitution. I object to that clause which 
fixes the qualification of voters ; and I undertake to say it is the most 
extraordinary that ever found its way into any constitution, state or 
national. Her constitution prescribes different classes of voters. The 
first is, " white citizens of the United States." They might as well have 
said white male citizens, for I believe women are citizens. The next 
class is, " white persons of foreign birth, who shall have declared their 
intention to become citizens conformably to the laws of the United 
States on the subject of naturalization." I object to that. Foreigners 
who have merely declared their intention to become citizens, in my 
opinion, ought not to be allowed to vote. What is an intention ? It is 
a myth ; it is nothing. A man may to-day have a very horia fide inten- 
tion to become a citizen, but to-morrow he may have no intention ever 
to become so ; and yet on making a mere declaration of such intention, 
a man is allowed to take part, not only in the elections of this state, but 
necessarily in the election of a President of the United States. I would 
permit no man to take part in the elections of this country who did not 
owe allegiance to the flag. Until he had sworn his allegiance to the 
government, and would be guilty of treason in case he took up arms 
against it, he should have no part or lot in the elections, with my con- 
sent. What right has a man who to-morrow may take up arms against 
your government, and yet commit no treason, to go to the ballot-box 
and take part in your elections ? How many thousands, nay, how many 
hundreds of thousands of foreigners, unnaturalized, hostile to your coun- 
try, to your government, and to your Constitution, might, under that 
clause, vote upon a mere declaration of intention ? How are you to 
punish a refusal to carry out an intention? A man may swear to it 
honestly ; he may swear to it corruptly ; but whether honestly or cor- 
ruptly, you can never ascertain. That is a secret locked up in his own 
heart ; a secret which can only be seen by the eye of the all-seeing 
Power who ruleth above — a secret not seen of men, and, therefore, not 
to be punished by men. 

That is not all. The next class of voters is, " persons of mixed white 
and Indian blood, who have adopted the customs and habits of civiliza- 
tion." Is not that beautiful? An Indian who has adopted the habits 
of civilization is to be allowed to vote. I should like to know what 
amounts to adopting habits of civilization ? I suppose if he put on a 
pair of pantaloons, a pair of spurs, and a shirt collar, he would then be 
a Georgia major; and if he got drunk, he would approximate to the 
highest degree of civilization. [Laughter.] Under that clause, there is 
not a breechless savage in all Minnesota that cannot be led up to the 
ballot-box and made to vote. 

Mr. Mason. Will the senator allow me to make a suggestion ? 



ADMISSION OF MINNESOTA. 535 

Mr. Brown. Certainly. 

Mr. Mason. They possibly intended to model it on the old Scotch 
usage that I remember having read of in one of the ballads for indicat- 
ing the approach of the Highland men to civilization — when they put 
on pantaloons and left off cattle stealing. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Brown. I do not know how that is ; but the language is, " habits 
of civilization." 

Mr. Toombs. I ask my friend from Mississippi, does he at all dispute 
the right of Minnesota to allow anybody she pleases to vote within her 
limits ? 

Mr. Brown. No, sir. 

Mr. Toombs. Then cui bono the argument ? 

Mr. Brown. I am making it for the same reason that my friend 
from Ohio [Mr. Pugh] the other day moved his amendment to the 
Kansas bill — not that I think there is anything in it, but I want to keep 
down clamor. I do not want to be misunderstood on this subject. I do 
not want to be understood as in any manner approving these provisions 
of this constitution when I vote for the admission of Minnesota ; and 
therefore I point them out and comment upon them, and file my protest 
against them, so as to exclude any such conclusion hereafter. That is 
my whole object in doing it. I said in the outset, that if I supposed 
myself responsible for this constitution, or am to be considered as 
approving it, I could not vote to admit the state. I do not believe that 
any state, old or new, ought to have any such provisions in its constitu- 
tion. I feel that I have no power to strike them out ; and if I had, my 
notion of state rights and state sovereignty is, that if Minnesota chose, 
she could put them back again to-morrow. I cannot control them ; I 
can say, and will say, that I do not approve them. I do not say that I 
shall vote against this bill, even if you allow Minnesota three represent- 
atives ; yet I do not well see how I can vote for it then, with my notions 
of what is right. I hope the Senate will do no such thing. Give 
Minnesota the two representatives to which, her census entitles her, and 
then I think there can be no further controversy. If she has any right 
to ask another representative on guess-work, I do not know but that I 
shall ask another for Mississippi. She has been populating very fast, 
and has a great many more people than she had when the last census 
was taken. I know that census in many counties was imperfectly taken. 
Let us stick to the record ; to the census, as made under the Constitu- 
tion. Make your apportionment according to that, and you will always 
be right, or somewhere in the neighborhood of it. 



636 ALBERT G. BROWN. 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS.* 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, FEBRUARY 3d AND 4th, 1858, ON THE ADMISSION 
OF KANSAS UNDER THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. 

Well, Mr. President, I must say to senators that I intend to address 
' myself to this question with as much deliberation as possible. I do not 
intend to occupy any extraordinary time ; but as the evening is drawing 
on, if any of them choose to go away while I am speaking, and occupy 
their time elsewhere, I shall take it not at all unkind. What I have to 
say is not designed to influence the votes of senators, and especially 
not the votes of Republican senators. Like Ephraim, they are joined 
to their idols, and I shall let them alone. I may have something to say 
in the progress of my remarks which ought to have influence on the 
minds of Democratic senators inclined to differ with me in opinion 
on this question; but even if they do not choose to remain in the 
chamber, I shall not take it as at all unkind if they go away. 

On a former occasion, I called attention to the fact that, at the 
beginning of the Kansas controversy, we expressly enacted that Kansas 
was to be admitted into the Union when she came to form her state 
constitution, with or without slavery, as her people should determine ; 
that all of us who voted for that proposition thenceforward stood com- 
mitted to the admission of the state. I asked then, as I ask now, 

* On the 23d of December, 1857, Mr. Brown, in advance of this speech, made the 
following remarks : — 

" I rise for the purpose of moving a postponement of this question, and I avail 
myself of the courtesy of the senator from Delaware to say that when the Senate 
shall meet again I shall have some views of my own to express on the matters 
involved in this debate. I desire simply to say now, on a single point, that I stand 
where I stood at the last session of Congress, and that nothing which transpired in 
Kansas on Monday last is to change ray position. If the election on Monday was a 
fair one, as I hope it was, in which all parties were allowed freely and without 
hinderauce to take part, and Kansas asks admission as a free state, I stand upon the 
record in favor of her admission. If, on the other hand, she asks admission as a slave 
state, I shall expect those who entered into the compact with us during the last 
session of Congress to abide by their pledges and vote for her admission. 

" As I intend to speak on the question, I feel it due to myself to say this in 
advance of any intelligence from Kansas. Of what may have transpired there on 
Monday, of course I know nothing, and no one else knows anything ; but whatever 
it may have been, I am prepared to stand by it, if the election has been fair ; that 

, is, if a fair opportunity was offered to all parties to vote. If my friends have thought 
proper to retire voluntarily from the polls and allow the election to go by default, 
that is their business and it shall not change my policy here. If, on the other liand, 
the friends of other gentlemen have absented themselves from the polls and allowed 
the election to go by default, they ought not, in my judgment, to change their policy. 
What I wish to be understood as distinctly saying is, that so far as those who had 
the management of the election are concerned, they should have held the scales of 
justice in equal balance between the parties, and if all who desired to cast their 

, ballots according to law had an opportunity to do so, whether they exercised the right 
or not, is a question which shall not weigh a feather on my mind. 

" Waiving that point, simply indicating that I have some purpose to express my 
views on the main question, if no other senator desires to ask the courtesy of the 
senator from Delaware, I move the further postponement of this question until the 
4th day of January, when the Senate will again be in session." 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 537 

whether it is fulfiling that obligation to resort to technicalities, to resort 
to special pleading, with a view of avoiding the force of the agreement ? 
Republican senators are not committed to this view of the subject, 
because thej voted against the bill. The Democratic senators are 
committed to it, because they stand on the record in favor of the bill. 

I had further called attention to the fact that the National Democratic 
party, in council assembled at Cincinnati, solemnly reiterated this 
declaration, and made it one of the corner-stones of its political edifice ; 
and, therefore, every member of that convention, and its nominees ; 
every member of the party throughout the Union, stood solemnly com- 
mitted to the same doctrine, that Kansas was to be admitted, with or 
without slavery, as her people should determine when they came to form 
a constitution. I had shown from the record that Democratic speakers, 
from that day forward, had on all proper occasions declared that they 
were prepared to redeem the obligation into which we had thus entered. 
I had inquired whether, this fact being true, we were now, on any system 
of pleading, to avoid the force of the contract ? 

Now, Mr. President, beyond all dispute, slavery lies at the bottom of 
all our difiiculties on this territorial question. Whenever we are about 
to organize a territory over any portion of the domain lying South, this 
question arises ; and it leads to long, animated, and angry controversy. 
On the other hand, whenever we are about to organize a territorial 
government over any of the domain lying North, it is done without 
cotroversy. Whenever we are about to admit a state in the North or 
Northwest, there is no controversy. Michigan was admitted, and Iowa 
and Wisconsin have been admitted, and other northern states have been 
brought into the Union, without any sort of objection on the part of 
southern senators and representatives. But when Arkansas and Florida 
and Texas were about to come in, we had a revival of these contests. 
More recently, we have had Minnesota and Washington and Oregon 
organized into territories — regions where slavery had not gone, and was 
not likely to go — and there was little or no controversy ; but when we 
were about to organize the territories acquired in the war with Mexico, 
we had a renewal of these angry contests, the point of conflict being 
always the existence in the territories of domestic slavery. 

The two teiTitories that were organized together in 1854, Kansas and 
Nebraska, gave rise, for a time, to a joint controversy ; but still the 
main point was in Kansas, as it has been ever since. Why ? Because 
slavery had not gone, and was not likely to go, to Nebraska ; while, if 
it had not actually gone, the probabilities were strong that it would go, 
to Kansas ; and hence the whole controversy rested on that territory, 
there being an effort, on the one hand, to force the institution out of the 
territory, and there being a strong disposition, on the other, to stand by 
what we conceived to be the constitutional right of those who have the 
custody of that institution, to take it into the territories. 

The question of slavery, Mr. President, has not only given annoy- 
ance to Congress and the country, but it has been the fruitful source of 
annoyance to political parties. It broke up the national Whig party. 
When the whole northern wing of that party became thoroughly 
abolitionized, the southern portion refused any longer to affiliate with 
them ; the party was broken up. Out of its ruins and out of the dissen- 
sions in the Democratic party, rose the American, sometimes called the 



638 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Know-Nothing party — a party which perished almost as soon as it was 
born. The fragments of these dissolved or dissolving parties were 
gathered together in the Northern States, and constituted the Republican 
party — a party which has no existence, or shadow of existence, any- 
where outside of the non-slaveholding states of the Union. 

This being true, there remains for us but one party which can lay 
just claims to nationality ; that is the Democratic party. But now the 
same element which broke up the Whig party, which prevented the for- 
mation of a great national American party, which has made the Repub- 
lican party purely sectional, is at work for the destruction of the National 
Democratic party. If the destruction of that party shall be worked 
out, if it shall follow in the wake of its predecessors, then it is absolutely 
certain that the country will instantly be divided into two sectional 
parties. The whole North will unite as a northern party, and the whole 
South will unite as a southern party. When this shall be done, it re- 
quires no spirit of prophecy to foretell the result. When all the North 
is pulling in one direction, and all the South in a contrary direction, that 
the Union must be drawn asunder is as certain as that the sun rose this 
morning and will go down to-night. 

With fearful consequences like these staring me in the face, and feel- 
ing the responsibility which rests upon me as one member of the Demo- 
cratic party ; seeing the imminent danger of its dissolution, and believing 
that bad men everywhere seek its dissolution, and to the end that I have 
pointed out, I approach the consideration of this question with extraor- 
dinary embarrassment ; and as I intimated before, what I have to say is 
to be said rather to the country, and to that portion of it which I have 
the honor in part to represent, than to any one here._ 

I hope it will be understood here, as I am sure it is understood else- 
where, that this Union has no more devoted friend than I ; that there 
exists not in all this broad republic one citizen prepared to make greater 
sacrifices than myself for its preservation. If I sometimes hesitate to go 
with those who claim to be, yar excellence, the friends of the Union, it 
is because I doubt whether their policy does not lead rather to its dis- 
ruption than its perpetuity. 

Repeated efforts have been made to compromise the question of slavery 
in the new states and territories, and they have as repeatedly resulted 
in disaster. In 1819-20 there was an attempt to compromise it. The 
country had been wrought up to a state of very high excitement, and the 
political doctors of that day said that a sedative, a light draught, the 
compromise, known ever afterwards as the Missouri compromise, was all 
that the case required. Wiser men of that day thought it was a disease 
so deeply rooted that it required more powerful remedies. If I can say 
it without giving offence, I will remark that the advice of political quacks 
was taken, and instead of striking at the root of the disease. Congress 
undertook to settle it, to cure it by compromise, by the application of 
sedatives ; and the compromise of 1820 was adopted. 

Years passed on, and as other territory was asking admission into the 
Union, that happened which the wise statesmen of 1819-20 on the south- 
ern side of the question declared would happen. The North — Massa- 
chusetts among them, Massachusetts who, in the person of the senator, 
has stood up here to-day the champion of law and order — refused to 
recognise the binding force of the compromise. Though xirkansas asked 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 539 

admission, lying clearly south of this compromise line, now so much 
revered and honored on the other side of the House, there was an attempt 
made to deny her admission, on the ground that her constitution toler- 
ated slavery. We acquired subsequently the territories of California, 
Utah, and New Mexico. Proposition after proposition was submitted 
to extend the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific, and as often as 
it was submitted it was rejected by our northern friends. That com- 
promise, then, was a failure, not recognised by anybody. 

In 1850 it was considered necessary to compromise again. Then we 
were told that the philosopher's stone had certainly been found ; that 
not only "the five bleeding wounds " had been cured, but that every- 
thing Avhich could give rise to agitation in the future had been perma- 
nently settled, and the whole disease had been torn up by the roots, and 
from that day forward we should have no controversy on the subject of 
slavery. To me the compromise of 1850 was distasteful. I abhorred it 
from the beginning, and am perhaps one of the very few, if I am not 
indeed the only man in Congress who voted against it in all its forms, in 
all its features, and in all its parts. 

Four years passed away, and it became necessary to compromise 
again. In 1854 we were told that the question had again got into difii- 
culty, and it was necessary to compromise it a third time. The Senator 
from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] brought forward his famous Kansas-Ne- 
braska bill — a bill which I propose now to consider. The main feature 
of that bill was the one so often quoted, that it neither designed to " le- 
gislate slavery into the territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to 
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domes- 
tic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the 
United States." I need not say that this provision sprang out of an 
attempt to enforce the Wilmot proviso on the country, not only on the 
territory north of the Missouri compromise line, but on the territory 
south of that line. The contest was kept up for years in almost equal 
balance, the friends of the proviso insisting that they had the right, by 
congressional legislation, to exclude slavery, and we of the South on the 
other hand contending that we had the right under the Constitution, 
without the aid of legislation, to carry our slaves into the common terri- 
tory ; and that, having them there, we had the same right that gentle- 
men of the North had to demand protection for any property of theirs. 
I say the contest thus stood, and was kept up with various chances of 
success for several years. About 1848 what was considered by many as 
a most happy idea was hit upon — the doctrine of non-intervention. It 
was tried in the presidential election of that year, and had very many 
warm and zealous advocates. It was more successful in the contest of 
1852 ; but it was not until 1854 that it was formally enacted into law. 
Then it received the sanction of Congress. No longer bandied about in 
political circles or resolved upon by vast political meetings, it received 
the high sanction of the Congress of the United States, and was 
enacted into a law. 

It is hardly necessary for me to say that as an original proposition I 
was opposed to it. I belonged to that class of politicians who believed 
that a southern man had the same right to go into one of the common 
territories of the Union, and take with him his slave property, that a 
northern man had to go and take with him any other species of property. 



540 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

I believed that I had the same right to go from Mississippi and take my 
slave property, that the senator from Massachusetts had to go and take 
anything which was recognised as property by the laws of his state, and 
that when I got it there, I was entitled to the same protection from Con- 
gress to which he was entitled for his property ; or if the territorial le- 
gislature made the law, then the territorial legislature was under the 
same obligation to protect me and my property that it was under to pro- 
tect the property of the senator from Massachusetts. That is what we 
asked, and it was all we asked. We had, however, no power to enforce 
a recognition of our claim, and the other side found themselves deficient 
of the power to enforce their idea of our total exclusion. After years 
and years of conflict, this idea was taken up that Congress would neither 
legislate slavery into the territory nor exclude it therefrom, but leave 
the people thereof perfectly free to regulate their domestic institutions in 
their own way. We passed the Kansas bill, and we stood in that bill 
solemnly committed to the ground that we would admit the state with or 
without slavery, as her constitution at the time of her admission should 
prescribe. 

This was our last compromise ; and now we are here, in less than four 
years after its passage, discussing again whether we are not to have 
another compromise. So far as I am concerned, and I speak for myself 
alone and for those who have authorized me by their commission to speak 
ill their name, I am for no compromise ; I am for the law as it is written. 
I accepted the compromise of 1854, I say, reluctantly in the beginning ; 
but having accepted it, I made up my mind as a man of honor to abide 
by it. I am not prepared to see its force destroyed by any resort to 
special pleading, by any resort to miserable county-court technicalities. 

Having said this, I come to the next point in the controversy. The 
law of 1854 was passed, under which Kansas was organized as a tei'ri- 
torinl government. A legislature was chosen for the territory ; but 
before that election was gone into, movements were set on foot here, to 
which I beg leave, by way of reviving the recollection of gentlemen as 
to what is the true history of this transaction, to call attention. I find 
them set forth in the memorable report of the senator from Illinois, 
made to the Senate on the 12th of March, 1856. That senator stands 
opposed to-day to the admission of this state into the Union under a 
constitution formed, as I believe, and as I think I shall be able to show, 
by her people. The senator from Massachusetts undertakes, in the 
close of his speech to-day, to defend the senator from Illinois. It was 
not from that quarter that defence came in days gone by. If the sen- 
ator from Illinois can stand a defence from that quarter, I have nothing 
to say in regard to it. 

Mr. Wilson. Allow me to say a word. 

Mr. Brown. Certainly. 

Mr. Wilson. I think the senator from Mississippi is entirely mis- 
taken. I made no defence of the senator from Illinois. He is capable 
of defending himself here or elsewhere. I simply referred to the fact 
that the senator from Illinois, who introduced the Kansas-Nebraska act, 
who, for four years, has been the champion of that policy, the trusted 
leader of the senators who supported that policy, has paused, has refused 
to consummate a stupendous and gigantic fraud ; and for that act he 
who has been their champion is now denounced from one section of the 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 541 

country to the other, and threatened with being driven out of the party 
■whose leader he has so long been. That is what I said. 

Mr. Brown. I have no comment to make on that part of the Sena- 
tor's speech. If it appears as it was delivered, I shall be quite content. 
But I desire to call attention to this controversy as it arose in Kansas, 
and to show high authority for the position which I take, that the Re- 
publican members in the Senate, and their friends in the states, were 
responsible for the first outrages committed there. It was because I 
intended to use the high authority of the senator from Illinois in this 
connection, that I alluded to him at all, and I was thus reminded that 
he had been but a few minutes before, as I thought, defended by the 
senator from Massachusetts. In the report of the 12th of March, 1856, 
to which I before alluded, the senator from Illinois said, as I believed 
at the time, and still believe, truly : — 

" The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act was strenuously resisted by all persons 
who thought it a less evil to deprive the i^eople of new states and territories of the 
right of state equality and self-government under the Constitution, than to allow 
them to decide the slavery question for themselves, as every state in the Union had 
done, and- must retain the undeniable right to do, so long as tiie Constitution of the 
United States shall be maintained as the supreme law of the laud. Finding opposi- 
tion to the principles of the act, unavailing in the halls of Congress, and under the 
forms of the Constitution, combinations were immediately entered into in some por- 
tions of the Union to control the political destinies, and form and regulate the 
domestic institutions of those territories and future states through the machinery of 
emigrant aid societies. In order to give consistency and efficiency to the movement, 
and surround it with the color of legal authority, an act of incorporation was pro- 
cured from the legislature of the state of Massachusetts, in which it was provided, 
in the first section, that twenty persons therein named, and their ' associates, 
successors, and assigns are hereby made a corporation by the name of the Massa- 
chusetts Emigrant Aid Company, for the purpose of assisting emigrants to settle in 
the west ; and for this purpose they shall have all the powers and privileges, and be 
subject to all the duties, restrictions, and liabilities set forth in the thirty-eighth and 
forty-fourth chapters of the revised statutes of Massachusetts.' 

" The second section limited the capital stock of the company to S5, 000,000, and 
authorized the whole to be invested in real and personal estate, with the proviso that 
' the said corporation shall not hold real estate in this commonwealth (Massachusetts) 
to an amount exceeding twenty thousand dollars.' * * * * 

" Although the act of incorporation does not distinctly declare that the company 
was formed for the purpose of controlling the domestic institutions of the territory of 
Kansas, and forcing it into the Union with a prohibition of slavery in her constitu- 
tion, regardless of the rights and wishes of the people, as guarantied by the Consti- 
tution of the United States, and secured by the organic law ; yet the whole history 
of tne movement, the circumstances in which it had its origin, and the professions 
and avowals of all engaged in it, render it certain and undeniable that such was 
its object." 

This, then, was the commencement of the present controversy. No 
sooner had the Kansas bill passed, than a movement was set on foot, 
(as was charged by the distinguished senator from Illinois, and as I 
believed at that time, and still believe,) through the instrumentality of a 
certain secret circular, prepared and signed by some of the Republican 
senators — the then senator from Ohio, Mr. Chase, now governor of 
that state, the eminent senator from New York, [Mr. Seward,] and I 
believe, also, the senator from Massachusetts, not now in his seat, 
[Mr. Sumner] — which gave rise to this organization in Massachusetts, 
this Emigrant Aid Society, with a capital of §5,000,000, only §20,000 
of which was to be used within the limits of the state of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Seward. Allow me a word of explanation. I am desirous that 



542 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

my honorable friend from Mississippi shall not perpetuate an old error, 
which was corrected at the time. Although there were some statements 
that I was a signer of the paper to which he alludes, those statements 
were corrected at the time of the occurrence and according to the fact. 
I am not entitled, therefore, to any of the merit or any of the demerit 
of the proceeding on which he is commenting. I know the honorable 
senator would not like to continue an error which is merely personal in 
its bearing. 

Mr. Brown. I am glad to hear that there is one who did not sign 
it; but there was such a paper. The point I was making is, that there 
was such a paper, and that it gave rise to the emigrant aid societies in 
Massachusetts and elsewhere. I make no point as to the individual 
senators who signed it. Now, taking the same report, from which I be- 
fore read, at page 9, I want to show how the persons who were sent out 
by the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society demeaned themselves when 
they got to Missouri : — 

" When the emigrants sent out by the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, and 
their affiliated societies, passed through the state of Missouri, in large numbers, on 
their way to Kansas, the violence of their language, and the unmistakable indications 
of their determined hostility to the domestic institutions of that state, created appre- 
hensions that the object of the company was to abolitionize Kansas as a means of 
prosecuting a relentless warfare upon the institution of slavery within the limits of 
Missouri. These apprehensions increased and spread with the progress of events, 
until they became the settled convictions of the people of that portion of the state 
most exposed to the danger by their proximity to the Kansas border. The natural 
consequence was, that immediate steps were taken by the people of the western 
counties of Missouri to stimulate, organize, and carry into effect a system of emigra- 
tion similar to that of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, for the avowed 
purpose of counteracting the effects, and protecting themselves and their domestic 
institutions from the consequences of that company's operations." 

I produce this authority to show how the controversy commenced. 
It had its origin in the secret circular ; it next exhibited itself in the 
formation of emigrant aid societies under the authority of the Massachu- 
setts legislature. The emigrants were sent out and demeaned them- 
selves as is described in the paragraph I have just read, and, in the strong 
language of the report, the natural consequences were the stirring of a 
feeling of resistance in Missouri. If there had been no secret circular 
issued, there would have been, probably, no organization of an emigrant 
aid society. If there had been no emigrant aid society, with a consti- 
tuted capital of $5,000,000, to stimulate the settlement of the class of 
persons set forth in the report from which I have read, in the territory 
of Kansas, there would have been no counter movement in the state of 
Missouri, and we should have escaped the charges about border ruffian- 
ism, and all the complaints which we have heard uttered to-day for the 
fortieth time by the senator from Massachusetts, of the terrible outrages 
committed by those people. I hope the Senate, like a high court of 
chancery, will require that he who comes here and asks for justice shall 
come with clean hands. If things have not been done in Kansas with 
the precise regularity, with all the order and decorum which the senator 
is accustomed to see at home, whose fault is it ? Who began the error ? 
I shall now proceed to show who has perpetuated it. 

The election for members of the legislature, as I said before,- was 
holden at the time, at the places, and in the manner prescribed by law. 
That there must have been irregularities, from the statement of facts al 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 543 

ready submitted, any one will see at a glance. The emigrants sent out 
from Massachusetts and the other New England states, were sent out 
in full force. They were met in the territory by emigrants from the 
state of Missouri. 

Mr. Harlan. I desire to inquire of the Senator from Mississippi if 
he knows what proportion of the free-state men in Kansas emigrated 
from New England ? 

Mr. Brown. I do not know, of course. 

Mr. Harlan. Then I will remark, merely in order that he may not 
base his argument on a wrong state of facts, that more than four-fifths 
of the free-state men in Kansas are from the Northwestern States — the 
states northwest of the Ohio river. There are to-day, doubtless, more 
people in Kansas from the state of Iowa than from all the New England 
states combined. The free-state men arrested, with arms in their hands, 
as it was stated, by the army of the United States, were principally from 
the state of Michigan ; and there were none of those emigrants, I be- 
lieve, from New England. The great body of the free-state men in 
Kansas to-day are from the Northwestern States ; and this is from the 
necessity of their position. Within those states there is to-day a popu- 
lation of between six and seven million people. They necessarily, ac- 
cording to the legitimate laws of emigration, throw over into the new 
territories of the Northwest an immense emigration, that overwhelms 
any other class of emigrants in point of numbers. 

I have deemed this correction necessary, as I saw that the senator 
from Mississippi was basing one portion of his argument on the supposed 
fact that the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society had sent the major 
part of the free-state men to Kansas. This is not true. They went to 
Kansas from the states of the Northwest, as they are going to Nebraska 
and to Minnesota. There are some men from New England, and some 
from the Southern States, but the great mass is from the Northwest. 

Mr. Brown. For any purpose of mine, it is not a matter of conse- 
quence where they went from — whether from Massachusetts or from the 
Northwest. My point is, that the movement was set on foot through the 
instrumentality which I have named. I never supposed that the opera- 
tions of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society were confined to the 
limits of that state, else it would not have been provided that only $20,000 
of the capital of $5,000,000 should be invested in property in Mas- 
sachusetts. It was intended to operate elsewhere. That it operated in 
Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and all the free states, I dare say is true ; 
but Massachusetts was the seat of the cancer. It spread out its roots, 
it is true, into all the free states ; its influence was felt everywhere. It 
is the influence of the movement of which I speak, and not the precise 
locality where it was set on foot. 

Then, sir, I repeat again, that it was the influence of this Emigrant 
Aid Society that gave rise to the first conflicts in the territory of Kan- 
sas. It was the conduct of its creatures as they went through the state 
of Missouri, as shown by the report of the eminent senator from Illinois, 
that first stirred the blood of the Missouri people, and determined them 
to defend, not Kansas, but themselves ; for they had unmistakable evi- 
dence that these people were being planted there so that they might 
make forays on Missouri, and, in the language of the report, wage a re- 
lentless warfare on slavery in the state of Missouri. 



544 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Mr. Fessenden. Will the senator allow me to ask him a question ? 

Mr. Brown. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Fessenden. I simply wish to inquire of the senator whether he 
is aware that, by the report of the committee appointed by the House of 
Representatives to investigate the matter, it was shown by the testimony 
of those who were engaged in the transaction — Missouri men — that even 
before the Missouri compromise act was repealed, associations were formed 
in that state in the shape of Blue Lodges, as they were called, with the 
express purpose of procuring emigration into the territory of Kansas, in 
order to shape its political institutions, and settle there and acquire the 
mastery ? 

Mr. Brown. I was not aware of any such thing. I use the report 
of the senator from Illinois, not only because it comes from a high source, 
but because I have been already admonished in the debate this morning, 
that the source from which it comes is regarded as of high authority on 
the other side of the Chamber. When the eminent senator from Illinois 
speaks to the Republican members of this Chamber, they are accustomed 
to listen. If I am not mistaken, they not only listen, and listen atten- 
tively, but they are, to a great extent, guided by his counsels. 

Mr. Wade. The gentleman ought not to bind us by confessions made 
previous to the conversion. Anything stated since, we will hear ; but 
anything before that, I do not consider myself bound by. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Brown. Well, sir, that is rather more witty than profound. But 
I will show, in this connection, what happened immediately on the reading 
of that report. The Senator from Massachusetts, not now in his seat, 
[Mr. Sumner,] at once rose and said : — 

" I cannot allow the subject to pass away, even for this hour, without repelling at 
once, distinctly and unequivocally, the assault which has been made upon the 
Emigrant Aid Society of Massachusetts. That company has done nothing for which 
it can be condemned under the laws and Constitution of the land. These it has not 
offended in letter or spirit ; not in the slightest letter, or in the remotest spirit. It 
is true, it has sent men to Kansas ; and had it not a right to send them ?" — Congres- 
sional Globe, first session, Thirty-Fourth Congress, p. 639. 

Now, sir, I wish to show how the senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] 
met that speech at the time. He first declares that the facts as he set 
them forth in the report are true, and then, addressing himself to the 
senator from Massachusetts, says : — 

" This he knows as well as I do. I do not intend to allow denials of the truth of 
facts to be interposed to screen men from the consequences of their action, when tha' 
action is avowed and susceptible of proof ; hence the senator's denial cannot be inter- 
posed. It is a denial of facts which he knows to be true ; — it is a denial of facts which 
shall not be controverted. If, instead of denying, he proposes to justify them, I 
would willingly hear him ; but he cannot be permitted to deny them. * * 

" If he means that he is prepared to go to the country to justify treason and 
rebellion, let him go ; and I trust he will meet the fate which the law assigns to such 
conduct. If he means that the hopes of his party are to produce a collision in 
Kansas, in which blood may be shed, that he may traffic in the blood of his own 
fellow-citizens for political purposes, he will soon discover how much "he will make 
by that course. We understand that this is a movement for the purpose of produc- 
ing a collision, with the hope that civil war may be the result if blood shall be shed 
in Kansas. Sir, we are ready to meet the issue. We stand upon the Constitution 
and the laws of the land. Our position is the maintenance of the supremacy of the 
laws, and the putting down of violence, fraud, ti'eason, and rebellion against the 
government." 

I am aware that this strong language was controverted at the time as 



I 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 545 

unjust ; but I am not aware, nor do I believe the record will show, that 
there was interposed at that day any denial of the facts. The challenge 
of the senator from Illinois was broad — broad as human language could 
make it. Not only his language, but his manner, was daring and defi- 
ant. The Republican senators were told at that day that their friends 
were charged with fraud — with rebellion against the constituted authori- 
ties of the country — and if they wanted to justify such conduct, they 
might attempt it, and take the consequences of the justification, but they 
should not deny the facts ; and I believe the facts were not denied. 

It was under circumstances like these, I say, that the election for the 
first legislature was gone into. The pro-slavery party triumphed ; and 
at once we had a howl raised all over the country, from one extremity 
of it to the other, that the election had been carried by fraud. The party 
who attempted the first fraud, and that upon a most gigantic scale, 
calling to their assistance from a single state a concentrated capital 
amounting to $5,000,000, lost the election in the territory ; and then 
they cry out "fraud," "rascality," "villany," "bogus laws," and all 
that. On the broad principle named by me before, that he who commits 
the first fraud cannot afterwards be allowed, in a court of equity, to com- ' 
plain that his adversary has committed frauds, I claim a judgment in this 
case. If gentlemen on the other side stood at a disadvantage in the be- 
ginning, when did they ever set themselves right ? All that I have 
heard from them since, has been one eternal cry about "fraud," "vio- 
lence," "bogus laws," and all that. Setting out with the fixed determi- 
nation, by the use of money and organized societies, to carry the elec- 
tion against the will of the people, they were beaten, and then set up 
this howl. 

The validity of the election, as has been repeatedly said, and, as I 
suppose, will not be controverted, was recognised by Congress, recog- 
nised by the President, recognised by all the five or six governors whom , 
we have sent there ; ay, sir, and recognised by a vast majority of the 
people of Kansas themselves, of all parties. The acts passed by that 
legislature are in force there to-day ; and, as was strongly said by 
Governor Walker, if you blot them out you leave the territory without 
law. On that point I desire the attention of senators to Governor 
Walker's lansuao-e : — 

" The territorial legislature, then, in assembling this convention, were fully sus- 
tained by the act of Congress, and the authority of the convention is distinctly 
recognised in my instructions from the President of the United States. Those who 
oppose this course cannot aver the alleged irregularity of the territorial legislature, 
whose laws in town and city elections, in corporate franchises, and on all other sub- 
jects but slavery, they acknowledge by their votes and acquiescence. If that legis- 
lature was invalid, then are we without law or order in Kansas ; without town, city, 
or county organization ; all legal and judicial transactions are void ; all titles null ; 
and anarchy reigns throughout our borders." 

Thus, sir, it seems that the authority of the legislature, its validity, was 
recognised in the territory, and is recognised now on all subjects except ' 
slavery. Though it is not germane to the point which I am discussing, 
I will ask in this connection, if it was a valid legislature for all other 
purposes, if it could grant town charters and city charters, if it could 
pass laws by which the rights of property are determined, if, in the com- 
prehensive language of Mr. Walker, it was a competent legislature for 



546 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

all other purposes, and it be true that the people were left to regulate 
their own affairs in their own way, how does it come that it was not a 
competent legislature on the subject of slavery ? 

The legislature thus chosen, the validity of which has been thus 
recognised by the President, by both Houses of Congress, by six successive 
governors, by a vast and overwhelming mnjority of all the people of the 
territory on all subjects except the subject of slavery, called a conven- 
tion ; but they did not do so without first consulting the people to know 
Avhether they desired to have a convention. I hold in my hand an 
extract from the Kansas Herald of October 18, 1856, which sets forth 
the returns of an election held in obedience to law to determine whether 
the people of Kansas desired to have a convention called or not. A 
vast and overwhelming majority of the people instructed the members 
of the legislature to call a convention. Then it was not, as has been 
assumed, an act of supererogation. It was not an act of assumption on 
the part of the legislature to order the convention. It was done in 
obedience to the popular will. The people at the ballot-box had ordered 
that it should be so. 

The legislature did not call the convention without first preparing the 
way, so that it should be done in the best manner possible, and in a way 
to avoid all future cuntrovers3^ I have before me an act of the legisla- 
ture, in which it is directed that a census of the whole population shall be 
taken, and a registry of the votes made, for the purpose of ascertaining 
who was legally entitled; and, under that authority, I find that — 

"Every bona fide inhabitant of the territory of Kansas, on the third Monday of 
June 1857, being a citizen of the United States, over the age of twenty-one years, and 
who shall have resided three months next before said election in the county in which 
he offers to vote, and no other person whatever, shall be entitled to vote at said elec- 
tion ; and any person qualified as a voter may be a delegate to said convention, and 
no others." 

What could be fairer ? ^Yas there any attempt to give advantage to 
one party over another? Every bona fide white male inhabitant, over 
the age of twenty-one years, was entitled to vote ; and all he was required 
to do was to give his name to the census-taker, and to allow it to be 
recorded on a register kept for that purpose, so that when the election 
came on, these emigrant aid men, these bogus men from Massachusetts, 
and these border -ruflBans from Missouri, might be excluded. It was a 
fair attempt on the part of the legislature to allow all who were justly 
entitled to vote the privilege of exercising it, and excluding all who were 
not entitled to vote. 

When gentlemen find fault with this action of the legislature, would 
it not be Avell to point out the objection ? Was it not fair ? Was it not 
as fair for one side as for the other ? It was an attempt to register all 
who should be entitled to vote, and to exclude all from every quarter, 
whether they came from the North or the South, who were not entitled 
to vote. How was that proposition met? Governor Stanton, in his 
messajie to the legislature at the late extra session, tells us that nine 

Til 

thousand two hundred and fifty-one votes were recorded, and no more. 
He tells us that a large number were not registered, and he assigns 
various reasons for it. I will read his very words : — 

" The census therein provided for was imperfectly obtained from an iinwilling 
people, in nineteen counties of the territory ; while, in the remaining counties, being 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 547 

also nineteen in number, from various causes no attempt was made to comply with 
the law. In some instances, people and officers were alike averse to the proceeding ; 
in others, the officers neglected or refused to act ; and in some there was l)ut a small 
population, and no efficient organization, enabling the people to secure a representa- 
tion in the convention. Under the operation of all these causes comljined, a census 
list was obtained of only nine thousand two hundred and lifty-one legal voters, con- 
fined to precisely one-half the counties of the territory, though these, undoubtedly, 
contained much the larger part of the population." 

Mr. Walker subsequently repeats the same charge, and says there 
were fifteen counties disfranchised. As this is an important point in the 
transaction, I shall pause to examine it with some little care. Is it true 
that either nineteen or fifteen counties were disfranchised either under 
the circumstances named by Mr. Stanton, or those presented by Gov. 
Walker ? I think I shall be able to demonstrate that no such thina; is 
or can be true. Recollect Mr. Stanton states there were nine thousand 
two hundred and fifty-one votes registered. This was the number on 
the last day of March, 1857, when the register was closed. In October 
following, more than six months after, when it is admitted the whole 
population voted, registered and unregistered, at that election at which 
Mr. Parrott, now a delegate in the other house, was chosen, when I 
believe all parties took a hand in the election, what number of votes was 
polled ? According to the authority of the Kansas Herald, ten thousand 
nine hundred and fifty-three votes were polled, being only seventeen 
hundred and two more than were on the register. According to the 
Herald of Freedom there were polled at that election eleven thousand 
six hundred and eighty-seven, or two thousand four hundred and thirty- 
six more than were on the register. 

]S[ow, sir, if you will bear in mind that this was an election at which 
everybody went to the polls without let or hindrance, and then remember 
that the country had been populating from the last of I\Iarch, when 
the register was closed, to October afterwards, you will find, I think, 
most of these two thousand four hundred and thirty-six, according to 
one authority, and seventeen hundred and two, according to the other, 
accounted for. There would be that many more by the ordinary laws , 
of population ; and then it is admitted large numbers were found by the 
census takers who refused to give their names. In a country like that, 
sparsely populated, new, and without roads, beyond all question, there 
would be considerable numbers who could not be found, even with the 
utmost vigilance. Now, make a fair deduction for the increased popula- 
tion for six months ; make a fair deduction for those that could not be 
found ; make a fair deduction for those who refused to register, and take 
those deductions from the excess of two thousand four hundred and 
thirty-six, according to the Herald of Freedom, an Abolition paper, and 
you have very few deliberately disfranchised men left — not half enough • 
to populate nineteen counties, according to Mr. Stanton, or fifteen 
counties, according to Governor Walker. I think, therefore, unless the 
figures speak falsely, I have shown already that Mr. Stanton and Mr. 
Walker are mistaken. And I now choose to show, even at the expense 
of wearying myself, that these gentlemen never seemed to entertain this 
idea until lately. Let us see what Mr. Stanton said on the subject in 
his first address to the people of Kansas, when he went there and 
assumed the duties of acting governor, by virtue of his commission as 
secretary. In this address, dated the 17th of April, 1857, he said : — 



548 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

" The government especially recognises the territorial actwliich provides for assem- 
bling a convention to form a constitution with a view to making application to 
Congress for admission as a state into the Union. That act is regarded as presenting 
the only test of the qualification of voters for delegates to the convention, and all 
preceding repugnant restrictions are thereby repealed. In this light the act must be 
allowed to have provided for a full and fair expression of the will of the people, 
through the delegates who may be chosen to represent them in the constitutional 
convention." 

Recollect that when this was said the register had been closed ; we 
had then these complaints that men had been disfranchised, and every- 
thing had been said about it. Then the great prominent fact which 
stared the country in the face was, that considerable numbers of the 
free state men had refused to register ; and the acting governor speaks 
to them, and tells them they had a full and fair opportunity open 
to them to give expression to their views. How could he say that, if 
nineteen counties, or one half the counties in the territory, had been 
disfranchised ? I do not pretend to say that a full registry was taken 
or kept in all the counties of the territory. I think that may not have 
been. I see the fact stated on the authority of an eminent citizen of 
the territory, that the census was taken, in some instances, for four or 
five counties together, under the name of one county. I have the paper 
before me, but shall not stop to read it, because I do not consider it 
very essential. 

Next let us see what Mr. Walker said on this subject. Mr. Walker 
went to the territory and issued his inaugural address on the 27th of 
May. The registry had then been closed nearly two months. He had 
the benefit of the experience of Mr. Stanton, who was his immediate 
predecessor; and then, addressing the people of the territory, he used 
this language : — 

" The people of Kansas, then, are invited by the highest authority known to the 
Constitution to participate freely and fairly in the election of delegates to frame a 
constitution and state government." 

Mr. Walker, with all the facts before him, addressing the people two 
months after the registry had been closed, and all the complaints had 
been uttered, said to the people of Kansas, "an opportunity is now 
offered to you of freely and fairly expressing your opinions," how can 
he now come forward and say that fifteen counties, some of them the 
oldest in the territory, had been deliberately disfranchised ? 

I show then, first by the figures, next by Governor Stanton, and next 
by Governor Walker, that the statement is not true. It cannot by 
possibility be true that fifteen counties of the territory were disfran- 
chised, if by fifteen counties be meant any considerable portion of the 
population. If it be simply meant that the forests and the soil were 
disfranchised, without reference to the people, it may be true. There 
may be territory enough here to make fifteen counties, and those counties 
may have legislative names ; but when Mr. Walker is at pains to say, 
as he does, that some of them are the oldest counties, if the story is not 
contradicted in some way, the country will be led to the conclusion that 
by this declaration it is meant that one half the population has been 
disfranchised. I undertake to say, first from the poll list, next from 
Mr. Stanton's declaration, and lastly from Mr. Walker's himself, that 
the statement is not true in that sense, and cannot be so. If Mr. Walker 
thought as he now states, and as he seems willing to have his friends 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 549 

here state upon his authority, that these people had heen disfranchised, 
and that they were only seeking rights which belonged to them under 
the constitution and laws, I want to know how he could ever find it in 
his heart to address to them such language as I shall now read ? In 
addressing the Secretary of State, under date of July the 15th, 1857, 
he savs : — 

" la order to send this communication immediately by mail, I must close by assur- 
ing you that the spii-it of rebellion pervades the great mass of the Republican party 
of this territory, instigated, as I entertain no doubt they are, by eastern societies, 
having in view results most disastrous to the government and to the Union." 

Sir, if Mr. Walker, writing on the 15th of July, 1857, to the govern- 
ment whose commission he held, under whose authority he was acting, 
and to whom he was bound to make truthful and correct reports, had 
seen that these people had been disfranchised, that fifteen counties had 
been denied the right to participate in the election, and had seen, as he 
seems quite willing now to have us believe he did see, that they 
were struggling for rights which had been lawlessly and violently torn 
from them, how could he say to the President that they were in open 
rebellion against the government? No, sir; he did not so understand 
it. He, doubtless, thought and understood as he wrote, and as he said, 
that the spirit of rebellion pervaded the entire mass of the Republican 
party in that territory, that they were instigated by certain eastern 
societies, the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society and its affiliated 
societies elsewhere, and that the purpose was to break down the govern- 
ment, and overthrow the Union. These were the grave charges brought 
at that day. 

Let us go a step further, and hear him talk to the poor downtrodden 
free-state men of Kansas ! Robert J. Walker, talking to these people 
who, he now says, had been disfranchised, who had been denied, accord- 
ing to his present authority, all right to participate in the election ; who 
had been tyrannized over, trampled upon, and treated worse than outlaws 
and outcasts, says, (I read from his proclamation of July 15, to the 
people of Lawrence :) — 

" You have, however, chosen to disregard the laws of Congress and of the territo- 
rial government created by it ; and whilst professing to acknowledge a state govern- 
ment rejected by Congress, and which can therefore now exist only by a successful 
rebellion, and exact from all your officers the perilous and sacrilegious oath to sup- 
port the so-called state constitution ; yet you have, even in defiance of the so-called 
state legislatui'e which refused to grant you a charter, proceeded to create a local 
government of your own, based only upon insurrection and revolution. The very 
oath which you require from all your officers to support your so-called Topeka State 
Constitution is violated in the very act of putting in operation a charter rejected 
even by them. 

" A rebellion so iniquitous, and necessarily involving such awful consequences, has 
never before disgraced any age or country." 

That is Robert J. Walker talking to these down-trodden people who 
had been disfranchised ! Did he think they were disfranchised at 
that day ? Mark you, he had been in the territory then from the 27th 
of May to the 15th of July following. During all that time he had 
made no discovery that the rights of these people had been injured, or 
he could never have said to them : " a rebellion so iniquitous, and neces- 
sarily involving such awful consequences, has never before disgraced 



550 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

an J age or country." Then again, in addressing the Secretary of State 
on the 20th of July, he says : — 

" I am no alarmist ; but if the Lawrence rebellion is not put down, similar organi- 
zations, extending to counties as well as towns, will be carried into etfect throughout 
the territory, the object being to overthrow the territorial government and inaugurate 
the Topeka state government, even before the admission of Kansas as a state by 
Congress." 



o* 



And he calls for troops, thinking nothing else will do. Now, one 
extract further. On the 27th of July, Governor Walker disposed of 
this whole complaint about border ruffians. In addressing the Secretary 
of State on that day, on his responsibility as governor of the territory, 
bound to give correct information, acting under the solemn obligations 
of his oath, he says : — 

*' There is no longer any pretext for the suggestion that any portion of the people 
of Missouri intend to invade the ballot-box at any election in Kansas." 

If all this be true, why did not the people go forward and vote ? A 
full, free, fair opportunity was afforded to them to do so. They certainly 
were not to be intimidated, nor browbeaten, nor driven from the polls 
by the Missouri border ruffians, when the governor of the territory 
could assure the President, as he did, that there was no longer any 
pretext for saying that Missourians intended to invade the ballot-box, 
or take any part at the election. Yet the spirit of rebellion was kept up 
in the territory. 

I come back to the convention. It was chosen ; it assembled ; it 
made a constitution. At this point we lose an ally who has stood by us 
from the beginning of the controversy. The senators on the other side 
of the chamber were never expected to go with us for the admission of 
Kansas, but the senator from Illinois was expected to do so. He, it 
will be recollected, was the author of the bill ; he it was vrho urged upon 
us the acceptance of the proposition to admit the state with or without 
slavery, as her constitution might determine; he it was, of all other men, 
who was most bound to stand by that agreement, and never to abandon 
it until compelled to do so by some gross violation of it on our part. 
The senator stood committed to the legality of the first legislature, as I 
have shown you. lie defended all its proceedings up to the calling of 
this convention. He told us, but two days ago, that, in calling the 
convention, the legislature had not transcended its power. He insists 
that it would be more regular to get authority from Congress before the 
legislature acted ; but, if the legislature choose to act without the 
authority of Congress, he admitted two days ago, clearly and distinctly, 
it had a right so to act. He admits that a refusal on the part of the 
convention to submit the whole constitution to the people does not 
invalidate it. He would prefer to have the whole constitution submitted 
to a popular vote ; but he says it is not essential that it should be done. 

This narrows the controversy, it seems to me, to a single point, and 
that is this : Is the constitution, as it is now presented to us, the act of 
the people of the territory of Kansas, ascertained in the mode prescribed 
by law ? Is it a constitution made by the people, at the time, at the 
place, and in the manner prescribed by the written law ? If it be so, 
then I think we shall have no difficulty in maintaining that it must be 
accepted, whether it tolerates or excludes slavery ; and that it is but 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 551 

a resort to a technicality, not creditable to those who resort to it, to make 
complaints that a majority of the people of the territory possibly did 
not vote in regard to it. If they did not, whose fault was it? Did it 
lie in the power of Congress to compel them to vote ? Did it lie in the 
power of the legislature to force them to the ballot-box ? Could the 
President, or the governor, or any other power knoAvn to the law, compel 
these people to go to the ballot-box and vote, whether they would or 
not? If I have shown you from the documents, as I think I have, that 
the law gave them the privilege of voting ; that the governor proclaimed 
to them that they had a full opportunity of voting ; that he would use the 
military power at his disposal to secure them the right to vote ; if all these 
guarantees were held out, and they refused, is the constitution to be over- 
turned ? Are we to refuse to accept the state, in deference to the judgment 
of those pronounced by the senator from Illinois to be rebels and traitors 
against the government — those denounced by the governor of the terri- 
tory as rebels and traitors, seeking to overthrow the government and 
overturn the Union ? Are we to refuse, in deference to the judgment 
of such men, to fulfil the solemn compact we have made, to admit the 
state, with or without slavery, as her constitution might prescribe ? 

I quite agree with the senator from Illinois that the constitution must 
be the act of the people, or it is no constitution ; but he and I have 
different modes of arriving at the will of the people. I maintain that 
when the day of election comes, and the ballot-box is open, and the 
people left free to go and vote or not as they please, those who vote 
carry the election, and not those who stay away and obstinately refuse 
to vote. The ballot-box has been kept open under the strongest guards. 
Every legal protection has been given by the President, by all his 
governors, and by all who have spoken, that every man should vote Avho 
chose to vote; and yet these parties have obstinately stood out and 
refused to exercise the right guarantied them by the law ; sometimes, we 
are told, because they were intimidated ; and then some more daring 
friend, a little ashamed of that sort of excuse, says they would not vote 
because the whole thing was a fraud from the beginnino-. I care not 
whether it was done for the one cause or the other, so long as the plain, 
stubborn fact stands out that there was no intent, no desire, expressed 
by them to exercise the franchise. Sir, we are falling upon strange 
times. An election is holden, the ballot-box is closed, and some man 
has got all the votes polled, but they do not constitute a ruajority of all 
the people of the district ; and forthwith up starts some fellow, who says : 
" The election must go for nothing ; you have not got a majority of all 
the voters, and therefore the election is void." That I understand to 
be substantially the ground taken by the senator from Illinois ; that 
because a majority were not polled affirmatively, therefore the election 
is not binding. 

I believe the senator is a native of Vermont, and I think he does 
great credit to his nativity; for certainly nobody short of a Vermonter 
ever would have made a discovery so notable as this. Whj"-, sir, it is 
Yankee all over. See how easily you can dispose of any election accord- 
ing to this theory. All that you have to do is to ascertain that you are 
pretty certain to be beaten, and then tell your friends not to go into 
the election, and keep everybody else from voting that you can; and 
when the election is over, show that a majority of all the votes have not 



552 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

been polled, raise a cry, and have the whole election overturned. That 
sort of argument will not do. I have, I believe, two colleagues in the 
other House now who were chosen by minority votes; chosen, I am glad 
to know, because of their extraordinary popularity. Nobody ran against 
them. They got each, I suppose, two-fifths of all the votes in their 
districts; nobody else got any votes at all; but according to these 
modern doctrines they are not elected ; the three-fifths who did not vote 
can call a mass meeting, overturn the old election, and have a new elec- 
tion to-morrow ! This is what I understand this doctrine to amount to. 
No, sir ; when the time came, and the place was pointed out for holding 
the election, and it was held in the manner prescribed by law, it was 
binding ; and I care not whether one, or one thousand, or one hundred 
thousand votes were polled. 

Why, sir, if an election were to be held in your district to-morrow, and 
but two of the fifteen thousand votes were cast, the election would be bind- 
ing. It would not be in the power of the other fourteen thousand nine 
hundred and ninety-eight to overturn the election the next day. They 
allowed the time to pass when they could have expressed their will in 
the mode prescribed by law; and if they chose to let the favorite 
moment pass by unimproved, they could not afterwards take advantage 
of their own error, or wrong, or laches. That is all I claim with refer- 
ence to Kansas. I simply claim that, at the time, at the place, and in 
the mode prescribed by law, the people of Kansas have expressed their 
opinion favorable to this constitution. 

But we are told that the constitution is not binding on other grounds ; 
it is said that some of the delegates disregarded the will of their con- 
stituents. I do not know how that may be; but I appeal to every man 
who has read the first horn-book of the law, if this is not true : that, as 
between you and other parties, you are bound by the act of your repre- 
sentative. We shall fall upon strange times here, if the fact of delegates, 
representatives, disregarding the will of their constituents, is to vitiate 
laws and constitutions. I mean to be entirely respectful ; but it seems 
to me that, in throwing my eye over this Chamber when it is full, it takes 
in more than one senator who does not obey the will of his constituents. 
Am I to be told that the legislation of Congress is void because the will 
of our constituents has not been obeyed ? If your acts are not invalid 
when you refuse or fail to carry out the will of your constituents, does 
not the same principle apply in Kansas? The delegate is responsible 
to his constituents, and to nobody else. The constituency has not com- 
plained. This complaint comes from a difierent quarter. It is said, 
that General Calhoun and other delegates did not carry out the will of 
their constituents. Have you ever seen a complaint from any of those 
who voted for them, that their will had not been executed by them ? 
Has anybody that voted for Calhoun and his associates ever complained 
that he was cheated — that they did not do what they promised to do ? 
I want to know if it lies in the mouth of the enemy to complain that I 
do not properly reflect the will of my constituents? 

I do not know what my friend from New York, who sits before me 
[Mr. King], may have promised when he was elected. I dare say he 
promised to do something wrong ; I think that is exceedingly probable. 
[Laughter.] Suppose he does not do it ; have the Democratic members 
of the New York legislature any business to complain ? They were not 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 553 

cheated ; they gave him no votes. If the senator fulfils the wishes of 
his own friends ; in other words, if, on party questions, they release 
him from party obligations, nobody else has a right to interpose and 
complain. I take the ground, and I stand on it, that my obligations on 
party issues are to the party who have elected me ; and if they absolve 
me from the obligation, no one else has a right to bind me. 

Then, sir, taking it on the ground that these men did violate their 
pledges, which I should undertake to controvert as a matter of fact, 
what does it -amount to? Until it is shown that the men who elected 
them were deceived, and that they complain, I maintain that the com- 
plaint goes for nothing. Suppose a senator comes here pledged to his 
party friends as a party man on a party measure to do a particular thing, 
and they afterwards change their minds, and say to him, " We would 
rather you would not do it," and he refuses it: have the enemy any busi- 
ness to complain ? This was a party question ; it was a question between 
the Pro-slavery party on the one hand, and the Free-state party on the 
other; the Free-state men did not vote for Mr. Calhoun; they did 
not vote for his associates ; they got their votes of the Pro-slavery 
party, and were chosen ; and whenever the Pro-slavery party complain 
that they have violated their pledges to them, the complaint may be 
listened to ; but it would be just as bad for me or my friends to complain 
if the Anti-slavery party had not redeemed their pledges to their friends. 
I have nothing to do with their pledges, whether they redeem them or 
not. 

Now, sir, I can tell you what I understand to be the facts, and that 
they are susceptible of proof I have no question. These men did pledge 
themselves to submit the whole constitution to the people. They did it 
with the hope of getting the whole population to come out and vote. 
The Anti-slavery people declared that they Avould take no part in the 
election; they would have nothing to do with it ; they would stay away 
from the polls. Then the friends of Mr. Calhoun and his associates held 
meetings, and absolved them from their obligation to fulfil that pledge. 
They said, and said rightly, " The pledge is to us ; we do not want you 
to fulfil it ; Ave do not ask you to fulfil it ; Ave would rather you would 
not fulfil it." If they absolved them from the obligation, I maintain 
that nobody else had a right to complain. 

The senator from Michigan [Mr. Stuart], in addressing himself to 
this subject, some days ago, took one or two positions to which I beg 
leave to call attention. He made it a ground of marked objection to 
the Kansas constitution that it Avas repugnant, in many of its provisions, 
to a large portion of the people, and that yet, before they Avere alloAved 
to vote in regard to it, they were required to take an oath that they 
would support it. This the senator considered a monstrous outrage. Sir, 
it would have been a monstrous outrage if the test oath, as he calls it, ' 
had been applied to one party, and not to the other ; but it Avas applied 
to every voter, whether he belonged to the Free-state or to the Slave- 
state organization ; to the Pro-slavery or the Anti-slavery party. If 
anybody required him to do it, he must take an oath to support that 
constitution before he could exercise the right of voting for or against 
it. I do not think there was any great outrage in this. If there had 
been an oath that they should approve the constitution, there Avould 
have been a great outrage in that ; but to support a constitution, and to 



654 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

approve it, are two dliferent things. How often has the honorable senator 
sworn to support the constitution of Michigan? Does he approve all 
that is in it ? Are there not things in it which he would prefer to have 
otherwise ? When Ave go to that desk, and swear to support the Con- 
stitution of the United States, do we swear that we approve it ? If so, 
I never would have taken an oath to support it. There are many things 
in it which I do not approve, which I should be glad to see otherwise ; 
but I am simply sworn, as a good, law-abiding citizen, that so long as 
it is the Constitution, I will support it, whether I believe it to be right 
or wrong. 

These people, as I have shown before, were in open rebellion against 
the government of Kansas. Disguise the fact as you please, it still 
stands out at every point that they were in rebellion ; and the conven- 
tion, wisely I think, required them to support the constitution before 
they should have anything to do with putting it in operation. It was 
meant for rebels and traitors and for nobody else, and being meant for 
them it was right. What business has a man in open rebellion against 
the government of his country, not meaning to obey its laws or support 
its constitution, to take part in its elections ? If he will do so, ought 
you not to bind him by oaths, and by all the power that you can throw 
around him, to cease his rebellion and obey the laws ? Even acting 
under the solemnity of an oath, these men would hardly be held within 
reasonable bounds or proper restraint. Without some such restraint, 
it would have been madness to submit the constitution to their hands. 

Again, my honorable friend objects to that feature of the constitution 
which required the president of the convention to appoint the officers 
who were to hold the election. When people do not mean to be satisfied, 
they find fault with anything and with everything. What have been the 
great complaints in reference to Kansas elections ? That the sheriffs 
would not do their duty, that they were partisan men. It is even said, 
now, that when they were required to take the census and keep the 
registry of votes, they did it so imperfectly that one-half the people 
were disfranchised. Then the convention takes the matter out of the 
hands of the sheriffs and puts it in the hands of commissioners, and the 
senator is not satisfied. What will satisfy him ? I know the senator 
from Michigan is too fair-minded to want anything unjust. I am sure 
he would not want ballot-box stuffers appointed on either side to hold 
the election ; but it seems to me, that in view of all the complaints about 
the malfeasance and bad conduct in every way of the sheriffs, that it 
was wise and proper to put the election in the hands of new parties. 

Again, the senator says Kansas is to be admitted into the Union, and 
he likens the position to bring her in to carrying a convict with shackles 
upon his arms, and admitting him into the penitentiary. I am sure that 
the senator could not well have studied that expression before he uttered 
it ; he could not have reviewed the speech after he made it, or no such 
comparison would have been allowed to pass into the everlasting records 
of the country. What, sir, the introduction of a state into this Union, 
likened to the admission of a shackled convict into the penitentiary ! I 
scarcely know in what language to comment on such a comparison. 

Then my friend (and I am sorry that I have not his speech before me, 
but I am sure I shall quote his idea correctly), as though exceedingly 
anxious to get clear of the slavery question and put it away from him, 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 555 

says "• these woolly-heads are eternally floating before my vision ; turn 
which way I may, I am surrounded with these woolly-heads." All I 
have to say to that is, that if the senator will let the woolly-heads alone, 
I will be responsible that the woolly-heads will let him alone. There is 
not a more amiable people in all the world, let me tell the senator, than 
these same woolly-heads. They are as innocent and inofl'ensive as the 
sheep that graze upon his own pastures, and never disturb any one. 

By the way, talking of the woolly-heads and the sheep, reminds me 
of a little story that I think will illustrate the senator's position. I heard 
somewhere of a man who had been long suspected of not dealing very 
fairly with his neighbor's property. Away out in an unfrequented wood 
the owner of a flock came bluff" upon him just as he had slaughtered a 
sheep, and it was lying at his feet. Said the owner of the animal, " I 
am glad to catch you at last. At last I have caught you in the very 
act." " Caught me in doing what?" "In the very act of killing my 
sheep." "Indeed," the man replied, "have a care; be a little cautious, 
sir, how you charge an innocent man with sheep stealing." " Why, you 
do not mean to say that you did not kill the sheep?" " Certainly not," 
was the reply, "I did kill the sheep, and I would kill anybody's 
sheep that would bite me as I am walking peaceably along the road." 
[Laughter.] 

Now, sir, if the senator will let our sheep alone, our woolly-heads 
alone, I dare say he will never be bitten by them while he is peaceably 
walking along the road, or in any unfrequented part of the country. 
Just let the negroes alone. If the senator will take it kindly, I would 
advise him to attend to Michigan afl"airs, and let me attend to Mississippi 
matters ; just get all your northern friends to attend to local matters 
which concern you, and let us down South attend to our own local 
afl'airs ; and then let us jointly attend to the aff'airs of the whole country, 
and we shall get along finely. Our sheep will never bite you,_ our woolly- 
heads will never disturb you, if you will only act on that principle. 

Well, sir, I have got through "the greater portion of what I intended 
to say on the points already alluded to ; yet there are other matters 
connected with the discussion to which I feel that I ought to pay some 
attention. 

Mr. Brown resumed and concluded his remarks the next day as 
follows : — 

The senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], in opening the discussion on 
the Kansas question at this session, took the position thi%t the President 
of the United States had committed a " fundamental error" in stating 
that the Lecompton convention was bound to submit the slavery clause 
to the people of Kansas, but was not bound to submit any other portion 
of the constitution. I am not going to discuss with the senator the 
point whether this was a fundamental or a superficial error, and yet I 
think it was an error. I take the ground that the Lecompton conven- 
tion was not bound to submit the whole constitution, or any part of it ; 
and that the error into which the President fell was not that stated by 
the senator from Illinois, but the one indicated by myself— to wit, in 
assuming that the convention was under obligation to refer any part of 
the constitution to the people. It might refer the whole, if it chose ; it 
might refer any part, if it chose; or it might not refer either the whole 
or a part. 



55G ALBERT G. BROWN. 

If this be not so, it seems to me that the whole doctrine of non-inter- 
vention passes for nothing. What, sir, lay down the broad principle 
that the people of the territory are to regulate their domestic affairs in 
their own way, and then interpose your authority at every step — tell 
them what they shall and what they shall not do ; that they must submit 
this clause of the constitution and that they need not submit others ; or 
that they must submit the whole constitution, or that they shall not 
submit any part of it ! I apprehend that the true doctrine is — not only 
upon sound original principles, but on the principles embodied in the 
Kansas bill itself — that you have no right to interpose your authority ; 
but the people of Kansas, or the convention speaking for the people, 
might either submit the constitution or not, as they chose, or submit the 
whole of it or any part of it. This must be so if you leave them free to 
regulate their own affairs in their own way. 

I think the President erred. I think he fell into an error in his 
instructions to Mr. Walker originally on the subject of submitting the 
constitution to the people. In the instructions he says : — 

" When such a constitution shall be submitted to the people of the territory, they 
must be protected in the exercise of their right of voting for or against that instru- 
ment, and the fair expression of the popular will must not be interrupted by fraud 
or violence." 

This, I think, was an error ; yet it was not so grave an error as has 
been charged. Mark you, the President did not say to Governor Walker, 
as the governor afterwards very adroitly assumed he had said, that " the 
constitution must be submitted;" "it shall be submitted;" or "it ought 
to be submitted." He authorized him to employ no such language, but 
he assumed that it was to be done as a matter of course. I should have 
preferred that the President had assumed no such thing ; but rather that, 
in the language of the law itself, he should have left the people of the 
territory perfectly free, either to submit it or not, without any sugges- 
tion from the executive poAver of this government. But if you will 
scrutinize the language, it will be seen that there is a vast difference 
between that employed by the President and that attributed to him by 
those who choose to criticise his instructions. While I say that I think 
the President committed an error in this point, I must also declare that 
it was an error into which he might very easily have fallen ; for the reason 
that there had been an assumption in the debates here on the Minnesota 
question that these constitutions must be submitted ; and in the Minne- 
sota case, Congress determined that it should be done. The President, 
therefore, might very easily have fallen into that error ; and seeing that 
he did it, innocently, in all probability, and that it amounted to very 
little after he had fallen into it, I have never felt disposed to criticise 
his instructions to Mr. Walker. My criticism ias always been on the 
manner in which the instructions were carried out. When the President 
assumed that the thing was to be done, Mr. Walker had no right to 
conclude that he had been ordered to have it done. There is a great 
deal of difference between assuming that a thing is to be done as a 
matter of course, and ordering it by authority to be done, whether the 
people like to have it done or not. 

The instructions to which the sentence I have quoted was a prelude, 
went to a different point. The instructions were — and strangely enough. 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 557 

the Republican senators overlook them — that the election should be a 
fair one; that the governor should, if necessary, use the military power 
of the government to prevent disturbances at the polls. Assuming that 
the constitution was to be submitted, not directing that it should be done, 
the President gave the very proper direction that the election should be 
fair ; and that, if the military power should be necessary, the governor 
should employ it to prevent either fraud or violence at the polls. Over- 
looking these proper instructions, the President is constantly criticised 
as having given a specific instruction to do that which he assumed would 
be done without instruction, or without invitation. 

If this constitution be rejected, the fact can never be disguised from 
the great American pubhc that it owes its rejection, solely and entirely, 
to the slavery clause. Gentlemen may resort to all manner of sophistry ; 
they may resort to all manner of argument ; but still, at last, the broad 
fact stands out staring the world in the face, that the constitution is to 
be rejected because it tolerates slavery. It is true, that the senator 
from Michigan [Mr. Stuart], and the senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], 
speak of what strike them as objectionable features in the constitution, 
with reference to banks, railroads, and schools, and all that ; but will 
one of them get up now and say, "I would vote to reject the constitu- 
tion solely on these grounds ?" 

Mr. Douglas. I desire to respond to that interrogatory now. If 
the Lecompton constitution was a Free-state constitution, I would vote 
to reject it. To show the senator from Mississippi that he ought to have 
so inferred from my former action, I will remind him that my speech 
against it was made before the vote was taken on the 21st of December, 
on the slavery clause, and at a time when it was almost universally con- 
ceded that the pro-slavery clause was to be voted out ; and that the con- 
stitution was to come here with a provision for " no slavery." My speech 
was made against it under the probability that Kansas under it was 
to be a free state. I took the ground then, that you had no more 
right to force a free state constitution on the people against their will 
than you had to force a slave state constitution on them against their 
wishes. I now say to the senator that my vote is given without any 
reference, directly or indirectly, to the slavery question. It is predi- 
cated on the great fact that a majority of that people are utterly opposed 
to this instrument as their fundamental law, and that you have no right 
to force it upon them either as a slave state or a free state constitution 
against their will. If they want a slave state, let them have it. I will 
give them every chance to express an opinion for a slave or a free state 
as they choose, and I will take them into the Union whichever way they 
decide that question. 

Mr. Stuart. I intimated yesterday my disinclination to interfere 
with the speech of the senator from Mississippi, and stated that at the 
pi'oper time I should take occasion to reply to all that he had said of me, 
in full ; and I had hoped that the senator would not find it necessary, 
in the further discussion of this question, to refer again to me. He 
has done it, however, and done it in such a manner that my silence 
might authorize him, and authorize his constituents, for whom, he 
informed us yesterday, he was speaking, to infer that I should have 
voted for the admission of Kansas with this constitution, if it had been a 
free state constitution. Now, sir, I stated distinctly in my speech, and, 



558 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

if the senator ^vill take the trouhle to look at it he ■will find it there, 
that it made no difference with me whether the constitution with slavery, 
or the constitution without slavery, were presented. And I stated then, 
show me that the constitution embodies the will of the people of that 
territory, and I shall vote for it, whether I like its provisions or not ; 
but, believing that this instrument is decidedly against the will and 
wishes of a large majority of that people, and being convinced that this 
is no longer a debatable point, but one which has been demonstrated by 
that people at the polls, I stated that there was no power under the Con- 
stitution to admit them as a state. The Constitution, in my judgment, 
authorizes the admission of a state when requested by a majority of its 
people ; but not the coercion of a state into the Union against a majority 
of its people. 

Mr. Brown. Neither of the senators has answered my question. I 
was advertised before that they were resisting the admission of Kansas 
on the ground that her constitution was not acceptable to the people of 
Kansas ; and yesterday I answered that objection, and shall probably 
have to repeat some of the arguments to-day : especially if this colloquy 
goes on. But the point to which I was calling the attention of the sen- 
ators was this : they have criticised the railroad policy, the banking 
policy, the school policy, and other features embodied in this constitu- 
tion. Will they vote to reject the constitution on one or all of these 
grounds ? 

Mr. Douglas. I will answer again, that I should not vote to reject 
the constitution because I did not like its railroad policy ; or because I 
did not like its revenue policy ; or because I did not like its system of 
elective franchise ; or because I did not like its slavery policy. I should 
not vote against it on any or all of these grounds ; but I vote against 
I it upon this ground : I do not care what provision the people of Kansas 
insert in their constitution on each, all, or any of these subjects. What- 
ever they want to put there they may have ; but I vote against it be- 
cause this constitution does not meet their will — because they are opposed 
to it. If they are opposed to it only because they do not like the elec- 
tive franchise, you have no right to force it on them. You have no right 
— it is not your province — to judge of the sufficiency of their objection. 
So with the slavery question. My opposition, I repeat, has no connec- 
tion with the slavery question. I stand on the principle that the people 
of Kansas have a right to make their own constitution, and have it em- 
body their own will ; and I will stand by that right, whether the result 
be to make Kansas a slave state or a free state, and any other motive 
attributed to me is unjust, and proven to be unjust by the fact that I de- 
. nounced this as a fraud at a time when it was universally conceded here 
that the pro-slavery clause was to be stricken out. 

Mr. Green. You say " universally conceded." I say, no, sir. 

Mr. D,0UGLAS. Perhaps there may have been here and there an ex- 
ception, but I made the objection at a time when the President of the 
United States told all his friends that he was perfectly sure the pro- 
slavery clause would be voted down. I did it at a time when all or 
nearly all the senators on this floor supposed the pro-slavery clause 
would be stricken out. I assumed in my speech that it was to be re- 
turned out, and that the constitution was to come here with that article 
rejected. I made my speech against it therefore as a free-state consti- 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 559 

tution. The whole speech proceeded on that ground. Now I submit 
whether it is candid or just to intimate that my objection is on account 
of the slavery clause ? I stand here prepared to prove, and intend to 
prove, that this constitution is not the act of the people of Kansas ; that 
it does not embody their will, and that there is no lawful authority to 
put it in operation against their wishes. 

Mr. Brown. We have heard very often from the senator from 
Illinois that his objection to the Lecompton constitution is chiefly and 
mainly that it is not the act of the people. When, however, I heard him 
elaborately criticise the banking policy, the railroad, school, and other 
policies indicated in the constitution, I took it for granted that they had 
made some lodgment on his mind. I was endeavoring to ascertain to 
what extent — whether to a sufficient extent to induce him to vote for a 
rejection of the constitution. I now understand him to say distinctly 
that he would not vote to reject the constitution on account of any policy 
of that sort, either bank, railroad, school, or any other. 

Mr. Douglas. Or slavery. 

]\Ir. Brown. Or slavery, or all combined. 

Mr. Douglas. All combined would not induce me to vote against ' 
it, provided it was the will of the people. 

Mr. Brown. Then I come to discuss the question with the senator 
again, and very briefly to recapitulate what I said yesterday on the point 
of this constitution being the act of the people. I said then, and now 
repeat, that unless it is the act of the people it is no constitution, and 
ought not to be accepted ; but I have one mode of ascertaining what is 
the will of the people, and the senator has another, and a difi"erent mode 
of ascertaining it. If the will of the people has been ascertained at the 
time and place, and in accordance with the mode appointed by law, that 
is all I require. If, as I undertook to show yesterday, the ballot-box 
was thrown wide open, a free and unrestricted invitation given to all men 
of all parties to come forward and vote, and the time was allowed to pass 
by, the opportunity to vote was suff'ered to go unimproved, those who 
did not vote cannot claim that they carried the election as against those 
who voted. I undertook to illustrate that idea by showing that, if in a 
congressional district on the day appointed by law, when the ballot- 
boxes are all opened, the judges, and superintendents, and clerks all 
there, but one-third, nay, if but one-tenth of all the votes are polled for 
a particular candidate, he is elected, and it is not competent for the other 
nine-tenths to hold a mass meeting on the next day, and declare the 
election void. I said, yesterday, that I have two honored colleagues in 
the other House of Congress, who received at the election in Mississippi 
about two-fifths of all the votes in their districts. They had no oppo- 
nents. The opposition did not vote, because voting would be fruitless. 
A large portion of their friends, seeing that there was no contest, did 
not vote, and but a small vote was polled. I submit to Senators whether 
it would be competent for the other three-fifths, who did not vote, to call 
a mass meeting, and declare that my venerable friend, General Quitman, 
was not elected a member of Congress, because he only got two-fifths of 
the votes of his district. He got about five thousand votes out of some 
fourteen thousand. The remainder were presumed, as in all such cases, 
to have acquiesced in the result ; but, whether they did or not, I take 
the ground that they could not hold an election the next day, and de- 



560 



ALBERT G. BROWN. 



termine that General Quitman was not elected. When the time came, 
when the polls were opened at the right place, and the people had an 
opportunity to vote, if they did not do it, it was their own fault. 

The senator from Illinois says he agrees with me there. If he does, 
I ask whether, in the manner of submitting this constitution, all was not 
done which those who had taken part in the election required to be done ? 
That takes us back to the election of delegates. I discussed yesterday, 
and do not care to repeat it all to-day, the question whether, in the mat- 
ter of disregarding instructions, as was charged upon Mr. Calhoun and 
his associates, they had violated any public sentiment in the territory 
to which they were in any wise amenable. I do not discuss the question 
whether they violated pledges or instructions or not ; I simply say that 
there is no complaint from those who voted for them. 

Mr. Stuart. If the senator will allow me to interpose now, as I am 
about to go out, I will only say this : so far as I am concerned, I have 
no disposition to interrupt him, or raise any dispute with him at this time 
in regard to his effort to prove that this constitution is the will and the 
wish of the people of Kansas. I should not have interrupted him at all, 
if he had not indicated at least a design to charge me with an intention 
to vote against the constitution because it was now a pro-slavery consti- 
tution, when I otherwise would not have done so. That I thought was 
unfair, when I had entirely shut the door against that conclusion in the 
very speech I made. I desire to take as little of the time of the sena- 
tor as possible ; and, therefore, shall say nothing further at present. 

Mr. Brown. I am sure I am very glad to hear the senator say so ; 
but unless he intended to control his vote by his speech, I really cannot 
see much use in making the speech. The greater portion of the sena- 
tor's speech was taken up with criticisms on the bank policy, the railroad 
policy, the land policy, and the school policy of Kansas. If he was not 
going to vote to reject the constitution on these grounds, I certainly do 
not see any reason for assigning them as objections to the constitution ; 
however, our tastes differ on that subject. 

On the point to which I was addressing myself a few moments ago, a 
friend has handed me a speech, pronounced by a very distinguished 
statesman of this country in 1843, which is so apposite that I will take 
the liberty, with the indulgence of the Senate, of having read one or 
two short paragraphs. It is a speech pronounced by Mr. Webster, and 
published on the 19th of February, 1843, in Niles's Register. 

Mr. Green read, as follows : — 

"Is it not obvious enough that men cannot get together, and count themselves, and 
say they are so many hundreds and so many thousands, and judge of their own 
qualifications, and call themselves the people, and set up a government ? Why, 
another set of men, for miles off, on the same day, with the same propriety, -with as 
good qualifications and in as large numbers, may meet and set up a government for 
themselves — one may meet at Nevrport, and another at Chepachet, and both may 
call themselves the people. What is this but anarchy ? What lilierty is there here 
but a tumultuary, tempestuous, violent, stormy liberty — a sort of South American 
liberty, without power, except in spasms — a liberty supported by arms to-day, 
crushed by arms to-morrovr. Is that ovr liberty ? 

" This regular action of popular power, on the other hand, places upon public 
liberty the most beautiful ftxce that ever adorned that angel form. All is regular 
and harmonious in its features, and gentle in its operation. The stream of public 
authority, under American liberty, running in this channel, has the strength of the 
Missouri, while its waters are as transparent as those of a crystal lake. It is power- 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 561 

ful for good. It produces no tumult, no violence, and no vjrong. It is well enough 
described in those lines of Sir Thomas Denman — it is a stream 

" ' Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull, 
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.' " 

Mr. Douglas. I endorse heartily every word there is in that beau- 
tiful passage from Mr. Webster's speech. I should like to know on 
what question it was made. 

Mr. Brown. On the Rhode Island question. 

Mr. Douglas. So I supposed. 

Mr. Simmons. I thought so. 

Mr. Douglas. Then it was a speech against the right to change an 
existing constitution in opposition to the constituted government in ex- 
istence, and is a beautiful authority against the right under the Lecomp- 
ton constitution to change it in any mode except that authorized by the 
constitution, and I am very much obliged to the senator for having 
quoted it on this occasion. 

Mr. Brown. I quote the sentiment for what it says, that public 
opinion is to be ascertained under the forms of law, and not through 
mob meetings ; I did not allude to the subject on which it was made, 
though that subject lies in the line of my speech, and I shall come to it 
by-and-by, if I can only be permitted to proceed without interruption. 

Mr. Douglas. I beg the senator's pardon for interrupting him. 

Mr. Brown. Not at all. 

Mr. Douglas. I wish to state that I would not have interrupted 
him if he had not specially invited me. He said many things before 
in his speech to which I wished to reply ; but I permitted them to pass 
in silence, because I did not wish to interrupt him. I will say to him 
now, while I am obliged to him for his courtesy, that I will not inter- 
rupt him any more. 

Mr. Brown. I have no objection to being interrupted on a point 
which I have reached in the progress of my speech ; but bringing in 
outside matters, gentlemen must see, takes a senator outside of the line 
of his argument, and when he comes to publish it, it makes it cumber- 
some and unwieldy. 

When these interruptions were interposed, I was about commenting 
on the charge (and I am doing it for the second time in answer to the 
senator's suggestion, because I feel it necessary to put it in juxtaposition 
with what he has said on the oft-repeated charge) that the delegates to 
the convention disregarded the instructions and will of their constituents. 
I said yesterday, I say again to-day, that there is no charge coming up 
from those who supported Mr. Calhoun and his associates, that their 
will has been violated. Those persons in Kansas who are denounced 
by the senator from Illinois, by Governor Walker, and by those who 
have watched their course and conduct most critically, as traitors to the 
eountry, and who did not take any part in the elections, now come for- 
ward and complain that the delegates, not chosen by themselves, and at 
elections in which they took no part, have not fulfilled their pledges. 

I undertake to say, as I said yesterday, as a Democratic senator, 
that I am responsible on party questions to the Democratic sentiment 
of my state, and to no other sentiment ; and if I stand to-day under 
a pledge to my party to do a particular thing, and to-morrow they hold 



502 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

meetings and absolve me from the obligation to redeem the pledge, then 
I am free, and no one else has the right to complain. Sir, it is a pretty 
business if the enemy may force a man to redeem pledges to his own 
friends, when his friends do not want the pledges redeemed. Now, I 
undertake to say that Mr. Calhoun and his associates were released in 
public meetings, by their friends, from any real or supposed obligations 
to redeem their pledges, and they never have complained. The com- 
plaint comes from a different quarter. It comes from men who are in 
open rebellion against the government there ; who refused to take any 
part in the election ; who trampled the authority of Congress under 
foot, and could only be kept down by the presence of an armed soldiery 
in their midst. I simply protest that they have no right to make 
complaints. If they have not, and if the constitution was made in ac- 
cordance with the will of those who triumphed in the election, and was 
submitted so far as they required that it should be submitted, who else 
has a right to complain ? I shall not go over all these points again. 

Mr. President, if Congress has the right to reject this whole constitu- 
tion, has it not a right to reject any part of it ? Does not the major 
proposition include the minor? If you have the right to reject the 
constitution for any other reason than that reserved in the Constitution 
of the United States, to wit, that it is not republican, where are you to 
stop? If you reject the whole, cannot you simply reject the pro-slavery 
clause, or the bank clause, or the railroad clause, or anything else that 
may be objectionable to you? If you can, what becomes of the doc- 
trine of non-intervention — this boasted doctrine that the people may 
form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject 
only — not, mark you, to your authority ; subject not to the authority 
of Congress or the President ; but subject only to the authority of the 
Constitution of the United States — that Constitution which affixes but one 
condition, that the constitution of the state asking admission shall be 
republican in form. 

I have asked what becomes of the doctrine of non-intervention ? 
And, I would ask, again, what becomes of this boasted doctrine that the 
people are to be allowed, in the name of popular sovereignty, to regulate 
their domestic affairs in their own way, if you are to interpose at every 
point to tell them what they shall do and what they shall not do, and 
not only what they shall do, but when and how they shall do it ? It is 
well known that I have very little respect for the doctrine of " popular 
sovereignty." I always regarded it as a catch-word of politicians. I 
always believed that it would lead to mischief. It has led to mis- 
chief. What gives you your disturbance in Utah to-day but this 
clap-trap about popular sovereignty? You told Brigham Young and 
his deluded followers that they were popular sovereigns : that they 
had the right to do as they pleased : and they very naturally inquired, 
" if we have, by what authority do you assume to appoint a governor 
to rule us, judges to expound our laws, and marshals and sheriffs to 
execute them. We are popular sovereigns; these things belong to us." 
The President told them that they were popular sovereigns ; the Secre- 
tary of State told them so : all the great men in the land told them 
80 ; and all the little ones, too, except myself and one or two others. 
They believed it, and because they believed it and acted on their con- 
victions, you are going to do — what ? Send an army there to shoot 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 563 

them, every one. I am not interposing any apology for Brigliam. I 
think he was a great fool ever to believe politicans, but I would not 
shoot him because he is a fool. I simply say that his course is a legit- 
imate and fair consequence from the doctrines Avhich you gave him. 
You told him that he and his people were sovereigns of the land, and 
he acted like a sovereign. He will not give up the office of governor 
to the President or anybody else, and he has turned your judges out 
of the territory. The same doctrine prevails in Kansas. Jim Lane 
and his followers think that they are popular sovereigns ; that they 
have a right to do as they please ; to overturn the lawful government 
if they are in a majority, and do it without going through the forms of 
law ; that they have nothing to do but call a mass meeting at Topeka, 
resolve that they are a majority, then act on their resolves, and overturn 
the government. It is a very convenient way of solving a difficulty, I 
grant you; something like the old resolves in New England, when the 
people resolved that the earth and the fulness thereof was the Lord's 
and his saints, and then they resolved that they were the saints of the 
Lord; and so took possession of the land. 

I said to the senator from Illinois, a short time ago, that the Rhode 
Island matter lay in the course of ray remarks, and that I would come 
to it presently. I will take it up here. The difficulty as to the Rhode 
Island case, I apprehend, was that by the election laws of that state a 
very large portion of the people were disfranchised ; that is, they were 
not allowed to vote. They had property and other qualifications there 
which disfranchised a large portion of the people. Those who were dis- 
franchised, together with their friends who had the right to vote, had a 
majority ; but of the voting population, a majority was opposed to chang- 
ing the constitution. They appealed and appealed again for the privi- 
lege of voting, so as to show that the whole adult population of the state 
would change the constitution if the privilege was given them ; but the 
legislature refused. 

Mr. Simmons. If it is of any consequence at all to have the facts 
in the argument, I will tell the senator he is mistaken about the facts. 

Mr, Brown. Very well. 

Mr. Simmons. If it is of no consequence I will not interrupt the 
senator. 

Mr. Brown. If I am mistaken in the facts as far as I have gone, 
of course I wish to be corrected. 

Mr. Simmons.. I stated the facts the other day, in the little allusion 
I had occasion to make to them. At the time those meeting-s were 
being held and before they began to be held, the government of Rhode 
Island had authorii^ed a convention for the purpose of framing a consti- 
tution with the view of altering the matter ; but in order to prevent 
that or to prevent another party from having the credit of it, these people 
began to roast oxen and have the sort of meetings which I described 
the other day. These are the facts, if they are of any consequence. 

Mr. Brown. Of course I shall make no point with the senator from 
Rhode Island as to the facts of that controversy. I was only stating 
them briefly as I understood them, by way of showing the ground for 
the position I was going to take ; but I can do it as well without a 
recapitulation of the facts of that case. It is sufficient for me that the 
Dorr party in Rhode Island undertook to change the constitution of 



561 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the state, or to make a new constitution without going through the forms 
of Law, and without legal sanction ; and Mr. Webster, on that propo- 
sition, whatever may have been the precise facts of the case, pro- 
nounced the speech which has been read here to-day. Now, if the 
doctrine of popular sovereignty is to prevail, law or no law, then Dorr 
was right, because he and his friends constituted, as I understand, a 
majority of all the people, though they were not a majority of the 
voters of Rhode Island. If they could have voted, I dare say they 
would have appealed to the ballot-box. I always understood that to 
be the fact. Very many of them, as I said before, had the privilege 
of voting, but many of them had not. I do not pretend to say that 
Dorr did right. I think he did very wrong. I never sympathized 
with his movements, but I thought his party were an oppressed party. 
That was my opinion ; but I saw only one way of changing the organic 
law or laws of any kind, and that was to do it in the mode pointed out 
by the law — through the peaceful agency of the ballot-box ; and any- 
thing else is revolution. 

But if the popular-sovereignty doctrine is to prevail, Dorr was right 
if he had the majority on his side. If he had the majority on his 
side, he had the right to control the government, law or no law, pre- 
cisely as Brigham Young is trying to control the government of Utah, 
law or no law ; precisely as Lane and his Topeka followers are under- 
taking to control Kansas, law or no law. They claim to be the major- 
ity, and it was to that point I wished to invite the attention of the 
senator from Illinois. It was to the point that these movements in 
Kansas were without sanction of any binding or valid law ; that the 
law, so far as the constitution was concerned, had fulfilled its entire 
mission when the election was held and the votes returned, and by no 
subsequent act of the legislature could the constitution thus formed 
be overturned, and, much less could it be done through the agency of 
mass meetings or popular clamor. Therefore it was that I said to the 
senator that I choose to gather public opinion through the agencies 
appointed by law, through the ballot-box, and at the time and in the 
manner prescribed by the statutes. The Lecompton constitution has 
been adopted, if that be the rule. If, on the other hand, we are to 
take the Dorr rule, or the Brigham Young rule, or the Jim Lane rule, 
and appeal to the masses without law, then it may be that the consti- 
tution has not been adopted. 

I have said, and I repeat, that the senator from Illinois brought 
forward the Kansas bill originally, and he, of all men, is called upon 
to make the greatest sacrifice to sustain it according to the letter of 
the law as drafted by himself. Whatever other men might do, it does 
not lie in the mouth of the senator from Illinois to avoid the force of 
the contract by any resort to special pleading. He, at least, ought to 
give it a fair and full and liberal construction, and mete out to us all 
that it gives, knowing, as he does, that his Democratic friends at the 
South accepted it with extreme reluctance. There is more than one 
senator in my eye who will bear me witness that I voted for his bill 
with extreme reluctance. I had seen how compromises had been con- 
strued away before ; how compacts, into which we had entered, had 
been kept with Punic faith, and I was slow to go into it. I went for it 
as much because I thought I was following a gallant leader who, come 



ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 565 

what might, would adhere to the law, and see that we had justice under 
it, as for any other reason ; but when, as I think, he abandons it, my 
feeling of regret for ever having gone for it, is greatly quickened. 
For a long time I thought the senator did mean to give us the Kansas- 
Nebraska law in its purity. I recollect that when senators on the 
other side first raised the cry against the fraudulent territorial legisla- 
ture, as they termed it — first denounced it as a bogus legislature, 
forced on Kansas by the people of Missouri — with what indignation the 
senator from Illinois rose to repel the charge ; how stoutly he stood up 
for the legitimacy of that legislature ; how he hurled the fire-brands 
back into the teeth of gentlemen. Still they make these charges ; 
still they make it as the ground work of all their speeches, that the 
legislature was a bogus legislature. The junior senator from Illinois 
[Mr. Trumbull], in commencing his speech on this subject the other 
day, laid the foundation of it in the charge that this was a fraudulent 
and bogus legislature ; that the laws which it had passed were no laws 
at all ; and the charge yesterday was reiterated with greater earnest- 
ness by the senator from Massachusetts. Why was not the senator 
from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] then as quick as in days gone by to rise 
and repel these charges against this legislature ? He had reported to 
Congress, he had time and again spoken to us, he had satisfied me at 
least, that it was as fair a legislature as ever was chosen, and as much, 
entitled to make laAVS. 

The principles of the Kansas bill were carried into the Cincinnati 
platform. There again they received the cordial approbation of the 
senator from Illinois. It was never until this constitution had been 
formed, and was upon the eve of being sent to us (for nothing was to 
be gone through with but the mere form of an election before the peo- ' 
pie on the slavery clause), that we heard the first complaint from the 
senator from Illinois, [Mr. Douglas.] Then it was that he interposed 
objection ; and I beg leave to say to the honorable senator that while I 
accept as true all he has said to-day, still I think the facts justify me, 
and justify his southern friends, in believing that slavery has something ^ 
to do with resistance even on his part. Mark you, I do not charge 
that it is so, because the senator denies it, and what an honorable sen- 
ator asserts I will not deny where I have no proof; and I can have 
none in a case of this sort. I only state the facts as reasons for my 
own conclusions. 

The senator complains, and has complained heretofore — perhaps it 
was not exactly a complaint, but he has said — that there was a disposi- 
tion amoncr some of his Democratic brethren to read him out of the 
party. I have no such disposition. I should part with him with 
extreme regret. I am sure there is not a Democrat in all the land who 
would not make any reasonable sacrifice to secure the fidelity of the 
senator, not only on this question, but on all other questions. But, 
Mr. President, this is a vital question ; it is a question of vast magni- 
tude ; and even at the risk of being lectured again by the venerable 
senator from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden], for whose judgment I have 
the profoundest regard on this and all other subjects, I will venture 
again to suggest that there are wrapt up in the destinies of this question 
the perpetuity of the Union itself. How do parties stand on this ques- 
tion ? The National Democrats, north and south, are for the admission 



666 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

of Kansas, with here and there an exception. The President is at our 
head, backed by a united cabinet. The Democratic presses throughout 
all the country thunder in our ears that a bill for that purpose ought to 
pass. Mass meetings being held in New York, Charleston, New Orleans, 
north and south, almost everywhere, urging the passage of it. Legis- 
latures resolve in favor of its being passed — the whole party, in a word, 
north and south, is sustaining the measure, and the whole sectional 
Republican party on the other side opposing it. Sir, the spectacle 
which you have in this Senate is seen all over the country — the great 
mass of the Democratic party is on the one side, and the great mass of 
the Republican party on the other. The American party, what little 
there is of it, I believe is somewhat divided. It is a pity, too, for there 
is hardly enough of it to divide. [Laughter.] 

Well, sir, this being the state and magnitude of the question — a ques- 
tion which involves the integrity of the Democratic party certainly, and 
which involves, in all probability, the perpetuity of the Union, the 
Democratic party standing arrayed on one side, and the Republican 
party on the other — where is the senator from Illinois ? Is he on the 
Democratic side ? Does he stand where he stood three years ago ? Are 
his consultations with us ? No, sir ; he stands on this question with the 
Republican members. On this vital question — vital to the integrity and 
to the perpetuity of the party ; vital, as I believe before God and angels, 
to the safety of the Union itself — the senator from Illinois has taken 
sides with the Republicans against the Democrats. If he is out of the 
party, it is not because he has been turned out, but because he has 
voluntarily walked out. 

Mr. President, the constitution of Kansas is here, and, but for this 
debate, it would probably have been reported from the committee, and 
we should be called on, each and all and every one of us, to vote either 
to accept or reject it. I shall vote for its acceptance. I should vote 
for it just as freely if it were an anti-slavery constitution. If there was 
a total want of any word, sign, or syllable in it, from the beginning to 
the end, looking to the protection of slave property ; nay, sir, if there 
were a total prohibition against slavery, I would vote for it. Why ? 
Because that was the compact into which the senator from Illinois 
invited me, and into which I entered. I vote for it ; I think he ought 
to do so ; but if he will not, let it be otherwise. 

Now as to whether the people of Kansas are to live under this con- 
stitution after it is made : they are to live under it just so long as they 
choose ; but when they choose to throw it off and make a new constitu- 
tion, and go to work according to the forms of law as it is written, they 
have the right to do it, in my opinion, without the slightest regard to 
anything that may be inside or outside of the constitution. I under- 
stand that the constitution secures the universal exercise of the elective 
franchise in the state of Kansas, that all men are allowed to vote. The 
senator has told us to-day — he has told us with equal emphasis on other 
occasions — that a vast majority of the people of Kansas are opposed to 
this constitution. If they are, let them manifest that opposition in 
some legal form. When the election comes on for governor and members 
of the legislature, if they have not already secured those officers, let 
them secure them : let a new convention be called ; let the constitution 



ADMISSION OF IL\NSAS. 567 

be changed; let it be made a free constitution a-s you call it, and I have 
not one word to say against it here or elsewhere. Let it be so. 

Mr. PuGH. Will the senator allow me to ask him a question at this 
point ? 

Mr. Brown. Certainly. 

Mr. PuGH. I wish to ask the senator whether he admits the rio;ht to 
amend this constitution as well previous to 1864 as subsequently ? 

Mr. Brown. I do. I would not care if it had declared on every 
page of it that it should be unalterable. I believe that the right to 
alter, and amend, and abolish forms of government is inherent in the 
people. All I demand is that the right shall be exercised untler the 
forms of law, and not through mob violence — not in the mode of Dorr, 
and Brigham Young, and Jim Lane ; but in the ordei-l}^ peaceable, and 
quiet mode in which constitutions have been changed in other states — 
New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, and everywhere else. 

Mr. PuGH. I did not interrupt the senator to make a controversy 
with him. I fully agree with him on the point ; but I only wished to 
ascertain his opinion. 

Mr. Trumbull. Will the senator from Mississippi allow me to ask 
him a question ? 

Mr. Brown. Certainly. 

Mr. Trumbull. I understand him to say that he believes the people 
may change the constitution before 1864, provided they do it according 
to the forms of law. 

Mr. Brown. Exactly. 

Mr. Trumbull. I wish now to ask him if any law passed by the 
legislature contravening that provision of the Lecompton constitution 
would have any force whatever ? Would not that be in violation of the 
law, and would not every court be bound so to hold ? 

Mr. Brown. I did not expect to be asked to point out to the Repub- 
licans precisel}^ how they could change the constitution ; but still, if they 
ask me I will tell them. They can do it precisely in this Avay : if they 
have not already secured the governor and legislature, which I believe 
is a disputed question, and have that four-fifths or nineteen-twentieths 
about which the senator from Illinois is constantly talking, if they have 
that strength, when the next election comes on, just go the polls like 
peaceable, orderly, quiet citizens, and exercise the right of voting, elect 
a legislature, and elect a governor. Then let your legislature, being 
instructed as they would be by your people, that they wanted to change 
the constitution, appoint a day, not when they (the legislature) will 
change it, or when they will remodel it, or do anything with it, but when 
the people themselves can elect a convention which shall change it. 
The legislature has no power to change a line, word, or syllable in the 
constitution; but the legislature can appoint a day when the people mav 
assemble, and under the forms of law elect a convention, which conven- 
tion can change the constitution, even against the words of the constitu- 
tion itself. I say again, when it shall be done I will defend it here and 
elsewhere, all over the land. I will stand by the President, who has 
already announced to the country that the constitution may be changed 
in this mode. 

Gentlemen, you try to fan the flames of d>scor( in the North in this 
wise : you say to your people there — some senatoi stated it the other 



568 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

(lay, and I do not know but that it was the senator from New Hampshire 
[Mr. Hale ;] — he is always saying something out of the way [laughter] 
—that whenever your friends undertake to change the constitution, party 
lines will be drawn, the party lash will be applied, you will be declared 
to be in the wrong, and the army will be sent to put you down. Sent 
by whom ? Has not James Buchanan already announced to you in the 
message we are now discussing, that you have the right to make the 
change ? Have you ever heard a southern man, in position here or else- 
where, declare that you had not the right to do it ? Then why say the 
party lash will be applied and armies sent to put you down in Kansas ? 

Gentlemen, I am respectful towards my brother senators. I dare say 
you believe what you say, but you do make the greatest sacrifice of 
common sense to your candor that I have ever heard from any set of 
sensible men, when you profess to believe that the President of the 
nation would deliberately, in the face of his pledge to the contrary, send 
an army to prevent that very thing being done which he himself declares 
in his message can be done. If you have the power, exercise it. If 
you have the votes, put them in the ballot-box ; take possession of the 
government, and God knows you are welcome to it ; but so long as I 
have a tongue to speak or an arm to strike, you shall take possession 
neither of that government nor of any other through mass meetings 
held at Lawrence, Topeka, or anywhere else. Do it through the peace- 
able agency of the ballot-box, and I am content. Attempt it by any 
other agency, and I will stand by the President in sending an army to 
crush out your rebellion. 

We have heard a great deal said in the course of this debate about 
apprehension of civil war, and bloodshed, and dissolving the Union, and 
all that. Sir, there is a sovereign remedy for all such apprehended evils. 
Obey the law, respect the Constitution, fulfil your contracts, and there 
will be no civil war ; there will be no bloodshed ; there will be no disso- 
lution of the Union. Fulfil all your obligations to the laws and the 
Constitution, and to the contracts between the sections of the Union on 
the subject of slavery, and all other subjects, and I guaranty that your 
Union will stand for ever. Trample upon these obligations, and soon 
your Union will pass away as " the baseless fabric of a vision." In the 
future I see the Union standing upon pillars as firm as the eternal rock 
of ages ; but I see it only through those paths which lead to the law, 
the Constitution, and the fulfilment of obligations. In a different direc- 
tion I see it a dissolving Union ; I see the stars of our galaxy being 
blotted out, and the sun of our glory running away as it were in rivulets 
of blood ; and all this is seen over the traces of violated laws, prostrate 
constitutions, disregarded compacts. 

Let me say, Mr. President, to the senator from Illinois, that on him 
rests a fearful responsibility. He is the author of this measure. He 
has stood by it until he has brought it to its present condition. He sees 
a Vy-hole united South arrayed on the one side, and he has thrown himself 
into the northern scale. Does he mean to array a whole united North 
against a whole united South ? If this result shall ever be accomplished, 
it will be done, in my opinion, over laws violated, constitutions trampled 
under foot, and compacts flagrantly outraged. I will not be responsible 
for the consequences when this state of things shall be brought about. 
Let not the senator from Illinois suppose that I have meant to assail 



ADMISSION OF ILINSAS. 569 

him; that I have meant to join in any cry against him. Let him not 
suppose that I am pursuing him with any of the instincts of a blood- 
hound. Heaven knows I would to-day much rather embrace him as a 
friend than regard him for a solitary instant as an enemy. He knows 
how much I have loved him in the past. He knows with what fidelity 
I have followed his flag, and with what joy I have witnessed the rising 
star of his glory. But it is not in the name of these that I would appeal 
to the honorable senator. We have a country, a common country, a 
country dear to him and to me ; to you, sir ; to one and to all of us. 
That country is in peril. The hearts of stout men begin to quail. 
Thousands and hundreds of thousands of our people believe that the 
Union is even now rocking beneath our feet. The senator has it in his 
power to put a stop to all this agitation. If he will but say to the angry 
waves, " Peace, be still," calmness will settle on the great deep of public 
sentiment. Whether he thinks so or not, he is the very life and soul of • 
this agitation. If he stood now where he stood at the passage of this 
bill, with his Democratic friends, supporting the strong arm of a Presi- 
dent who dares to do his duty in defiance of all danger, there would not 
have been a ripple on the surface, or if there had been, it would have 
subsided and died away in the great ocean of oblivion where other 
ripples have gone, and we should almost without an effort introduce 
Kansas into the Union. Sir, the senator from Illinois gives life, he 
gives vitality, he gives energy, he lends the aid of his mighty genius 
and his powerful will to the opposition on this question. If ruin come 
upon the country, he, more than any other and all other men, will be to ' 
blame for it. If freedom shall be lost — if the Union shall fail — if the 
rights of man shall perish on earth — if desolation shall spread her ' 
mantle over this our glorious country — let not the senator ask who is 
the author of all this, lest expiring Liberty, with a death-rattle in her 
throat, shall answer to him as Nathan answered David, " Thou art the 
man." 

Mr. Hale. I do not intend to occupy the time of the Senate more 
than a few minutes ; but if the honorable senator from Mississippi will 
give me his ear, as he thinks I am always saying things out of the way, 
I want to put a question, so that I may be able to keep in the vray here- 
after. I wish to ask him whether or not, if the constitution of Kansas, 
or any other state, comes here correct in all its forms, so far as paper 
and ink are concerned, is it competent for the Senate or Congress to 
look behind the forms to facts that are not patent upon the papers which 
are presented ? That is the simple question I wish to ask, and I believe 
it is pertinent to the train of argument in which the senator has been 
indulging. If a state comes here applying for admission with every- 
thing, so far as paper and ink are concerned, so far as is shown on the 
face of the papers, all correct, and it is contended and admitted that 
there has been a fraud, is it competent for Congress to look behind and 
beyond the returns, to that fraud, on the question of admission ? 

Mr. Brown. Unquestionably, if it is a clear and palpable case of 
fraud. If one man, for instance, should to-day make out a constitution 
for Nebraska, or make out a constitution for Oregon, and should present 
it here, and the charge should be distinctly made, it would be competent 
to inquire whether it was not a fraud of that sort. Unquestionably it 
would. 



570 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

Mr. Hale. I do not wish to be left in doubt. The senator says it 
would be competent to inquire, if the fraud were clear and palpable. 
A thing that is clear and palpable, exists on the face of the papers. 
My question is not as to a patent fraud that is palpable on the face of 
the paper ; but where the allegation is that there is fraud behind the 
paper, and though the figures are well enough. It is said that " figures 
cannot lie;" but it is forgotten that those who make them can. My 
question is, whether the paper and figures, being right, yet there being 
a suggestion that there is a fraud behind — not patent, not palpable — in 
that case the Senate can go behind it? That is the question. 

Mr. Brown. I am not prepared to answer a question which has such 
latitude as that. I dare say a case could be supposed where I should 
say they could ; but I think they should proceed behind the presentation 
of the constitution with exceeding caution, and never to the point of 
inquiring into the validity of an election. I do not think that proper. 
The convention must necessarily be the judge of the qualification and 
election of its own members ; and, except in a case of very extreme and 
outrageous fraud, palpable and clear, we ought not to go behind that. 
I am not prepared to say that, in such a case, you cannot inquire into 
such an election ; but an ordinary inquiry into the validity of an election, 
I hold is beyond our power. 

Mr. Hale. I am satisfied. 



MINJN^ESOTA SENATOES. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 25, 1858, ON 

THE PROPOSITION TO SWEAR IN MESSRS. SHIELDS AND RICE, SENATORS 

FROM MINNESOTA, ELECTED PREVIOUS TO HER ADMISSION AS 

A STATE INTO THE UNION. 

Mr. President : I quite concur with the senator from Georgia, that this 
whole question turns on the point Avhether Minnesota is a state of the 
Union. If she is, then it was clearly the right of the senator from Ken- 
tucky this morning to move, as he did, to swear in her senators, as much 
so as it would be the privilege of the senator from Texas to rise to-mor- 
row morning and move to swear in his absent colleague who has not yet 
taken the oath. It is not technically a question of privilege ; it is rather 
what we call, in parliamentary law, a privileged question. The distinc- 
tion is not worth drawing here, perhaps, but still there is a distinction. 
Now, is Minnesota a state of the Union ? She is not. I sljall vote 
' for the resolution proposed by the senator from Georgia; but I do it in 
deference to the judgment of other gentlemen, and to get clear of the 
question now, and not because there is one single shade of a shadow of 
doubt on my mind on the subject. Minnesota is not a state of the Union. 
If she is, she must have been made so by the enabling act. There is no 
pretence that she has become a state in any other way. Who knows ? 
How has it been congressionally ascertained that she has complied with 
the enabling act ? Where is the judgment on that subject ? How has it 



REPRESENTATION OF MINNESOTA. 571 

been ascertained that her constitution does not infringe or violate the 
Constitution of the United States? When was it ascertained and put 
upon the record that her constitution is republican in its form ? All 
these things may be true, but they have not been ascertained. There is 
nothing on the record to show that they are true. Where is the evidence, 
that in fixing her boundaries she has not run into the adjoining states, 
and cut oflf a part of Iowa and Wisconsin ? Has it been ascertained that 
that is not true ? Suppose, without inquiry, just by virtue of the en- 
abling act, she is now in the Union, and it turns out that her consti- 
tution is not republican in form, that her boundaries violate the bounda- 
ries of the adjoining states, that she has in other respects violated the 
Constitution of the United States : then what ? Is she out of the Union ? 
Do you break up the Union by turning her out to-morrow as soon as you 
ascertain that these things are true ? If she is in the Union, she is in from 
the day her constitution was passed by the members of the convention 
which made it, for you have done nothing to give sanction to it since that. 
If she is in by virtue of the enabling act, she is in from the very hour 
when the convention made the constitution; and then I suppose the very 
instant you find out that her constitution is in violation of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, she goes out. That is dissolution. 

I speak of these matters simply to show what strikes me to be the ab- 
surdity of declaring a state in the Union in this sort of informal way. 
If she cannot be in the Union with a constitution anti-republican; if she 
cannot be in with boundaries which infringe the boundaries of other states ; 
if she cannot be in because her constitution provides for orders of nobil- 
ity, stars, and garters, and all that ; if she cannot be in for any one of 
the hundred objections which I could name, then there must be a neces- 
sity for ascertaining that these objections do not exist before she is in at 
all. Who has ascertained it ? It is the duty of Congress under the 
clause of the Constitution,which authorizes it to admit new states, to as- 
certain all these points. When they have done it, and put that ascer- 
tainment in the form of a judgment, on the records, the state is in, and 
not till then. About this I have no doubt, and I am astonished to find 
that anybody else has ; but still, in deference to the opinion of other 
gentlemen, and to get clear of the question, I will vote for the resolution 
of the senator from Georgia. 



EEPRESENTATION OF MINNESOTA. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, MARCH 29, 1858, ON THE REPRESENTATION OF 
MINNESOTA IN THE SENATE AND HOUSE. 

I INTEND, Mr. President, to vote for the amendment proposed by the 
senator from Massachusetts. It commends itself to my judgment as 
right. The second section of the bill proposes to admit the new state of 
Minnesota with one representative. To that she is clearly and dis- 
tinctly entitled. It then goes further, and says that she shall have such 
additional representatives as the census already taken shall show her to 
be entitled to. That return shows, technically, that she is entitled to no 



572 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

additional representative ; but it shows that she has more than a majority 
of the quota. If we are to follow the precedents set us in the case of 
California, and the case of South Carolina, she is entitled to one addi- 
tional representative. I will mete out to this young sister that justice 
which has been meted out to other sisters of the confederacy. I am 
prepared to vote for a representative for her fraction, because it was 
given to South Carolina, and given to California, and it is fair to presume 
she is as well entitled to it as either, or both of them. 

Then it may be inquired why I vote for this amendment, seeing that 
the census has been taken, and that, according to the returns, there is 
only population enough to give her one representative, and one for a 
fraction over a majority of the quota? I do it because leading citizens 
from this state, leading friends of the state in both Houses of Congress, 
assert that the census was improperly and imperfectly taken ; and say 
that if there had been a proper and perfect enumeration of the inhabi- 
tants, she would have shown herself entitled to three representatives. 
I know not whether that be so or not ; and in the important matter of 
apportioning representation, I will not guess at the amount of population. 
I cannot do it, and will not do it ; but when we have so much evidence 
that the state has population enough to entitle her certainly to two, and 
in all probability to three representatives, and a proposition is brought 
forward to take a new census, to show whether she is not entitled, by a 
fair enumeration of her people, to another representative, it is harsh 
treatment to say that you will refuse the small outlay in money which 
it will require to re-enumerate her inhabitants. What is there in the 
proposition ? It will perhaps cost you fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, 
in hard cash, to take a re-enumeration of the inhabitants of this state, 
and that is all it will cost. Will you weigh that amount of money 
against injustice charged, and charged, doubtless, conscientiously in the 
judgment of many, as having been committed against this state ? 

Now, sir, I want a minute more to vindicate myself from any portion 
of the responsibility, which may seem to be heaped upon me, growing 
out of the repeated declaration that Texas was admitted here with two 
representatives without an enumeration of her population, and California 
without it too. It is true you did introduce Texas with two representa- 
tives, but how ? She came here as an independent republic, saying, " if 
you will receive us as we propose, we will come into the Union ; but if 
you will not thus receive us, w^e will stay outside of the Union." It was 
no admission of a new state. It was a proposition on the part of an 
independent republic, upon terms proposed by herself, to come into the 
Union. If you chose to accept them, well ; if you had not, just as well. 
In the case of California, I know you did introduce a state without an 
enumeration of the people, and did it wrongfully. I, and others who 
stood by me at that day in opposing it, predicted that that would after- 
wards be claimed as a precedent, and that other states would ask admis- 
sion on the same principle. 

I was against the admission of California with two representatives. I 
am against the admission of Minnesota with three representatives. I am 
for admitting the state, but I repeat to senators now, what I said three 
weeks ago, that, with my consent, Messrs. Shields and Rice shall not 
take a seat on this floor, under the late election, friends or no friends. 
I would not care if they would vote a thousand times over for the admis- 



ALIEN SUFFRAGE. 573 

sion of a thousand such states as Kansas. I will not vote to introduce 
them into the Senate under their late election. States have the right 
to elect senators ; territories have no such right. Was Minnesota a 
state in the Union when she elected these gentlemen to the Senate ? 
No. The whole record, this day's debate, shows that she is not now, 
and was not then a state. Then under what clause of the Constitution 
did she elect senators and accredit them to this body ? Under what 
clause of the Constitution did she elect representatives ? She is entitled 
to her delegate as a territory ; and she is entitled to nothing more. I 
shall not vote to introduce her members here ; and if I were a member 
of the House of Representatives, it would not matter a fig whether she 
claimed one, or two, or three, or twenty representatives, 1 would vote to 
admit none of them. 

I understand that a state must be clothed with all the immunities, 
privileges, rights, and dignities of a state before she can elect a senator. 
Sir, this thing has been peddled down low enough ; it is disreputable ; 
it is treating the older states of the confederacy with less dignity than 
they are entitled to, to allow territories, in advance of their coming in 
as states, to elect senators and send them here. Then what have we 
got before us now? A proposition, taking Minnesota and Kansas 
together, from the venerable and distinguished senator from Kentucky, 
in advance of the admission of this state, to receive her senators, and 
then, right upon the back of that, to admit the state. And then we 
have, as to Kansas, a proposition to admit her in one sentence, and then 
allow herself to turn herself out in the next, to declare that she is in 
the Union, and then leave it to her own people to say whether she is in or 
not. Why, upon my soul, sir, I cannot see where we are going. You 
admit Kansas to-day, you admit her and declare her in the Union, and 
allow her to resolve herself out to-morrow. It seems to me that this 
involves us in unmistakable difficulty. When a state is fairly in the 
Union, a member of the confederacy, let her elect her senators and her 
representatives, and do not permit her to do it before. When she is 
once in, she can get out but by one mode, and that, let me tell senators, 
is by the peaceable process of secession. 

But, sir, I rose simply to say, that inasmuch as this amendment pro- 
posed nothing but to re-enumerate the inhabitants of Minnesota, I shall 
vote for it. I thank the senator from Massachusetts for brinwing: it 
forward. It is just to Minnesota, and ought to be adopted. 



ALIEN SUFFEAGE. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATE.S, APRIL 7, 185S, ON INDIAN 
AND ALIEN SUFFRAGE IN CONNECTION WITH THE ADMISSION 

OF MINNESOTA. 

I WISH to express my concurrence in the main views of the senator 
from Texas. I think his position exactly right. He votes for the 
admission of Minnesota, with a protest against the improper features 
of her constitution. I join in that protest ; and if I had the slightest 



674 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

dream that my vote was to be construed into an endorsement of the 
constitution, I would withhold it, or put it upon the other side. But I 
desire to ask the senator from Texas whether he approves of that 
other remarkable feature of this constitution, upon which he did not 
comment, which grants to Indians who have adopted the habits of civili- 
zation the right of suffrage. My friend is the especial champion of the 
aboriginal tribes here, and whenever you strike an Indian you seem to 
make a personal issue with my friend. 

Mr. Houston. The gentleman has not been suspected of striking at 
Indians himself. Though he lived in their neighborhood, I always 
understood him to be very kind to them. I will assure him that I do 
most cordially approve of the provision. I think it very important. I 
will barely remark that those Indian tribes who had opportunities of 
organizing themselves into communities, are quite as civilized and as 
well regulated as we are oui'selves, and I think it well to encourage them 
whenever they evince a disposition to become civilized and christianized. 

Mr. Brown. That is well enough as a sort of general reply ; but 
the langruage of the Minnesota constitution is that Indians who have 
adopted the habits and customs of civilization shall be allowed to vote. 
That kind of phraseology, it seems to me, lets in all the Indians of the 
country. All you have to do is to catch a wild Indian in Minnesota, 
give him a hat, a pair of pantaloons, and a bottle of whiskey, and he 
would then have adopted the habits of civilization, and be a good voter. 
[Laughter.] Whole tribes will be carried up to vote in this way. 

Mr. Hamlin. That is the way they did vote. 

Mr. Brown. The senator from Maine says that is the w\ay they did 
vote. This, hoAvever, is the business of Minnesota, not mine. I think 
it all wrong ; and if I had any power to correct it, or any right to inter- 
pose, I would do so. This feature of her constitution is infinitely more 
objectionably to me than that one which tolerates foreigners in exercising 
the right of suffrage. I agree with the senator from Texas, and other 
senators, that men who have not taken the oath of allegiance to the 
government, ought not to participate in its elections, state or national ; but 
I would much rather — and there I differ from the senator from Texas — 
give to the least gifted of those who come to our shores, or, in the lan- 
guage of the senator from Tennessee, who are drifted here, and the least 
educated of them, the right of voting after they get here, than to confer 
the same right on these breechless savages, who are made to adopt the 
habits of civilization, in the language of this constitution, on the day 
of election, by putting on the garb of white men, to be doffed the hour 
after the election is over. 

But I know of no way by which you can correct this evil ; I know of 
no authority in Congress to strike this clause from the constitution ; and 
if you had the power to do it, I know enough of the relations existing 
between the federal and state governments to know that, if Minnesota 
is in love with it, she can put it back to-morrow, and then, being entirely 
independent of the action of Congress, it would remain there. I simply 
content myself, therefore, with protesting against it, and protesting that 
no one is*^to assume that I endorse it when I vote to admit this state 
into the Union. 

While I do not concur in the reasoning of the senator from Texas, I 
do concur in his main conclusions. I think that a state may authorize 



ALIEN SUFFRAGE. 575 

a foreigner to vote without his being naturalized ; I think a state may 
authorize a civilized Indian to vote; but certainly it is going a great way 
to assume, that when he has simply adopted the habits of civilization 
you are to allow him to vote, without defining what shall be considered 
an adoption of the habits of civilization. If he is not taxed, you cannot 
enumerate him ; you cannot even count him in making up the sum of 
population ; and yet he can vote. You give him the right of suffrage, 
and you do not even enumerate him as one of the population of the 
state. That is carrying the thing a great way. But if he is a foreigner 
inhabiting the country, you must enumerate him ; and if the state 
chooses, it may confer on him the right of suffrage ; but the right con- 
ferred in Massachusetts cannot be carried by the same man to Virginia, 
unless he has taken the oath of allegiance. It is a citizenship of the 
United States, and not of a particular state, that confers on him the 
right of suffrage. If he be a citizen of the United States, then he may 
be a citizen of any one of the states, and must stand upon the same 
footing in Virginia that a native son of Massachusetts would stand. 

I understand that clause of the constitution quoted by my friend from 
Tennessee, to mean that Virginia cannot make a distinction between the 
adopted and native born citizens of Massachusetts ; that she cannot 
confer a privilege on the senator from Massachusetts, and deny the 
same privilege to a citizen of that state, who has been naturalized under 
the laws of Congress, though he was born in France, or Spain, or Ireland. 
If he be a citizen of the state, Avithout regard to birth, he carries with 
him all the privileges of any other citizen. No distinction is to be made 
in Virginia between citizens of Massachusetts, of native or of foreio-n 
birth. That is what I understand by it. In other words, Virginia can- 
not say that the native born citizens of Massachusetts shall vote, and 
that the adopted citizens, if they are citizens of the United States, 
made so under the act of Congress, shall not vote ; but if they be simply 
and alone authorized to vote by the laws of Massachusetts, then they do 
not carry that local right to any one of the other states : that is not 
being a citizen. The right of voting and the rights of citizenship are 
two things separate and distinct. The right of suffrage does not neces- 
sarily involve the right of citizenship. The right of citizenship does 
involve the right to vote, because that is a right which belongs to every 
citizen, and cannot be taken from one class and denied to another class — 
that is all. You cannot deny the naturalized citizen the right of suffrage, 
and give it solely to the native citizen. One single state might do it, 
but still that naturalized citizen, if he went to any other state, would 
not carry with him that disability to the state in which he went. It is 
a disability which simply attaches to him in his locality. 

Mr. Stuart. If I understand the senator from Mississippi — and I 
really wish to understand him on this point — I quite agree with him. 
My position is, that every state has a right to say who shall exercise the 
right of suffrage, 

Mr. Browx. Certainly. 

Mr. Stuart. Kow, sir, if a man is a citizen of the United States 
by naturalization, and has certain rights in Massachusetts, he does not 
carry with him into Mississippi any of those rights, unless Mississippi 
chooses to give them to him. — I mean the right of suffrage. Mississippi 
may say that, of the two men going from Massachusetts, one a natural 



576 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

born citizen, and the other a naturalized citizen, the one who is a citizen 
by birth may vote in Mississippi; and the other, who is a naturalized 
citizen, shall not. I think it is competent for Mississippi to say so. 

Mr. Brown. Then we differ. I hold that, if they are citizens, you 
have no right to apply the rule ; otherwise, it will not make them equal. 
But they must be citizens of the United States. As to what may consti- 
tute, in the technicalities of local law, citizenship in a state, that is a 
different matter. But when a man is a citizen of the United States, 
native-born or naturalized, I hold, if he and a native-born citizen pass 
from one state into another, the state into which they go has no right 
to make distinctions between them on account or their birth. That is 
my doctrine. If they are citizens of the United States, one native-born 
and the other adopted according to law, and pass from Massachusetts to 
Virginia, I maintain that Virginia cannot then make a distinction between 
them. She must treat them alike. 

But I did not rise to discuss the question. I only wanted to sound 
my friend from Texas, and I am sorry I have been betrayed an inch 
beyond that — to know what he thought of letting Indians vote. 



ENGLISH BILL. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 29, 1858, ON 

WHAT IS COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE ENGLISH BILL, OR THE REPORT 

OF THE COMMITTEE OF CONFERENCE ON THE DISAGREEING 

VOTES OF THE TWO HOUSES ON THE ADMISSION OF 

KANSAS INTO THE UNION. 

Mr. President : I desire, in a few words, and without making a speech, 
to assign the reasons why, if we are ever brought to a vote, I shall record 
mine in favor of this proposition. I must say, in the outset, that I do 
not like it; there are a great many reasons why I do not ; but as I have 
brought my mind to the conclusion to vote for it, I shall not assign the 
reasons why I do not like it, but rather assign the reasons which influence 
me to vote in its favor. 

The first is this : that we settle this question ; and better on these 
terms, than leave it open. I can see, if left open, that it is to be made 
the fruitful source of discontent and strife, and of political turmoil per- 
haps for years to come. I can see how, in very many ways, it may en- 
danger, seriously endanger, the perpetuity of the government itself. As 
long as the question is kept open it must continue to irritate the feelings 
of the people of the two sections of the Union. Until this question is 
settled, you cannot begin to have a reconciliation on that great contro- 
versy which has been going on for years and years between the North and 
the South. This question is a thorn which rankles in the side of the 
nation. You must extract it, or you can have no permanent peace. If 
I had no other reason for going for this bill, I would do it for that and 
that alone. It is a peace measure ; it brings healing upon its wings ; it 
brings the different sections of the country in closer neighborhood, in 
better fellowship. 



ENGLISH BILL. 577 

How much is there in the bill to forbid our takinc' it ? First it is said 
bj some of those who vote against it, that it is a submission of the Le- 
compton constitution to the people of Kansas. And then again, others 
vote against it because it is not a submission. I mean to state ray own 
views with perfect candor and with entire fairness. I do not understand 
it to be the submission of the constitution to the people, but I do un- 
derstand this to be true, that you submit collateral questions— the 
land question, and others involved in the Kansas ordinance — to the peo- 
ple of Kansas ; and that if in voting upon those questions they choose to 
determine that they will not come into the Union under the Lecompton 
constitution, they have the right to do it. 

They pass no judgment directly at the polls on the constitution, one 
way or the other, but each voter can control his own vote by his own 
reasons ; and if he chooses, under cover of voting to sustain the ordinance, 
to vote against the whole constitution and against coming into the Union,' 
he can do so ; and if a majority take the view of the subject, the state is 
not in the Union. 

That much in fairness and candor, for thus stands the question, if I 
properly comprehend it. 

Now what just ground have we southern men to object to that ? What 
just reason is there for our opposing it ? We took the ground in the 
beginning, and maintain it now, that we would not and will not sustain 
a submission of this constitution to the people under the circumstances 
of its coming here. But Ave took the ground at the same time that we 
would not sanction this ordinance, making, as it did, exorbitant land de- 
mands upon the government, and setting up other pretences which had 
not been tolerated in the admission of other new states. From the be- 
ginning, the friends of the Lecompton constitution struck at that ordi- 
nance, determined not to receive it, and not to give it their sanction. The 
original Senate bill declared that it was no part of the constitution, and 
could not be so recognised by Congress. After we made that declaration, 
I apprehend, if the bill had passed, it would have rested with Kansas to 
decide whether she would organize under the constitution or not ; whether 
she would come into the Union or be considered a member of'it. You 
had stricken off her ordinance. You chose not to regard it as a part of 
the constitution. But did Kansas so regard it ? She did not. You 
struck it off without her consent. She thought it a material part of her 
proposition. 

Then was she in the Union ? She was not, until, either by silent ac- 
quiescence in your action, or by some positive declaration of her own, 
she placed herself into the Union. I hold that if you had passed the re- 
gular Senate bill, and Kansas had refused to organize a state govern- 
ment under the Lecompton constitution, and under that bill, there would 
have been no power in this government to force her, and therefore that 
she would not have been in the Union. She would not, because you had 
not met her proposition, and she had not accepted yours. Your minds 
had not agreed. She would not accept the proposition you had sent to 
her. You had changed her proposition so far as to strike off her ordi- 
nance, and she had not agreed to have it stricken off. 

Then it rested with her to say whether she was in the Union or not ; 
and what does this proposition amount to ? It simply declares that 
Kansas may determine for herself whether she is in or out of the Union 
37 



578 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

— a right whicb she had without your saying so ; and which she would 
still have, whether you said so or not. You do not, by this declaration, 
confer any right on Kansas. You simply recognise a right which 
already exists, and which, if she chose, I repeat again, she could have exer- 
cised without your consent, just as well as with it. When this debate 
first opened, the senator from Michigan [Mr. Stuart] employed this lan- 
guage on this point: "They," meaning the people of Kansas, "are 
arming ; they are determined to resist an admission under this constitu- 
tion, by any and every power with which God has clothed them ; and yet 
we are to sit here and say, ' we admit you into the Union of the United 
States.' As well might you take a prisoner, under the sentence of a 
court of justice, handcuffed, with your officers surrounding him, by force 
to the prison, and say to him, ' there is no coercion ; we admit you into 
the penitentiary.' " 

I thought then, sir, and so declared, tliat there was no power to force 
Kansas into the Union. If she proposes to come in, and you accept her upon 
the terms which she proposes, then she is in, and she cannot, recede. 
But if she proposes to come in, and you alter her proposition, then it de- 
pends upon her to say whether she accepts or rejects the alteration. 
That right, I repeat again and again, she has, whether you admit it 
or not. 

To reduce it to a simple question of law, suppose you and I, Mr. Pre- 
sident, have dealings in reference to an estate, and we agree upon the 
terms ; I draw the bond or the deed, and attach to it a memorandum, or 
condition, or ordinance, explaining what I understand to be the meaning 
of the paper, how I expect to see it executed, and send it to you, and 
you sign it, but strike out the memorandum, or condition, or ordinance : 
I ask any lawyer whether the contract is binding on me until, either by 
silent acquiescence, as by proceeding to execute it, or by some positive 
declaration, I make it my own deed ? Just so with Kansas. She sent 
you a constitution ; she sent along with it her ordinance, the memoran- 
dum which explained the reasons why, and the terms upon which, she 
proposed to enter into the bargain, and become a member of the Union. 
You choose to strike the ordinance out ; you choose to strike it from the 
constitution. Then I hold, as a simple legal proposition, she had a right 
to say, " you have changed the tei-ms upon which I propose to come in ; 
I will not come in ; I choose entirely to recede from the proposition." 
It does not depend on you, sir, as one of the contracting parties, to say 
whether she shall recede or not ; the right exists independent of you. 
If you meant to bind Kansas absolutely, you should have accepted her 
proposition in totidem verbis. You could not strike out what you did 
not like, stand by what you did like, and still insist that Kansas was 
bound by her proposition. 

But, Mr. President, how am I to understand senators ? The senator 
from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], who has just closed his speech, opened the 
session with an argument in favor of submitting this constitution to the 
people of Kansas for their reception or rejection ; yesterday, in a col- 
loquy with the senator from Ohio [Mr. Pugh], he said no state ought 
to be admitted until she has the requisite population to entitle her to 
one representative, and he repeated the declaration, with some qualifica- 
tion, to-day. Now, what does the bill before us propose ? According 
to the argument of the senator from Michigan [Mr. Stuart] yesterday ; 



ENGLISH BILL. 579 

according to che argument of the senator from Illinois to-day ; according 
to the argument of nearly all the gentlemen on the other side, this bill 
proposes to send back the constitution, and give the people of Kansas 
an opportunity to accept it or reject it, as they choose. It is true, the 
honorable senator from Illinois says you put them under some sort of 
compulsion ; but he does not pretend to deny that they will have the 
power to reject, under this submission, if they choose to do it. Then, 
if they do, what follows, according to this bill ? That they shall not 
come into the Union until they have the ninety-three thousand four 
hundred and twenty population requisite to entitle them to one repre- 
sentative under the existing ratio. And yet, Mr. President, when both 
these propositions are before us, one to submit the constitution for 
rejection or submission, as gentlemen argue, and the other to reject the 
state entirely until she has the requisite population — they being, in plain 
English, the two propositions of the senator from Illinois himself, 
embodied in the same bill — he rejects them both. In the name of 
popular sovereignty, he rejects two of his own propositions, either of 
which he thinks would be just to the people. 

Under this bill, as I have admitted, and as other senators have claimed 
in broader language than I have, the people of Kansas may, if they 
choose, accept or reject the Lecompton constitution. The senator thinks 
they ought to have a right to reject it or accept it; or, if that be denied 
them, that the people be authorized to form a state constitution only 
when they have the full ratio of representative population. Very well ; 
this bill takes both horns of the dilemma ; and yet the senator rejects it. 
For myself, I am free to say, I hope the people of Kansas will, if this 
bill passes, adhere to their ordinance, and insist on remaining out of the 
Union. If they come in they must come in under the Lecompton con- 
stitution ; if they stay out they must stay until they have the population 
to entitle them to one representative in Congress. That suits me. 
I close in with that offer. 

But, says the senator from Illinois, this land grant is a bounty held 
out to the people of Kansas to accept this constitution — a bribe, as it 
has been elsewhere termed. How, sir ? It reduces the amount of the 
grant claimed in the ordinance by more than twelve million acres. The 
senator from Michigan, in a carefully prepared table, which he intro- 
duced into his speech delivered on December 23d last, shows that the 
whole grant was upv»-ards of sixteen million acres ; that the railroad 
grant alone was upwards of seven millions. I understand from the 
senator from Missouri [Mr. Green], who brought forward this bill, that 
he has had a calculation made, and that the grant proposed for all pur- 
poses is about four million acres. And yet when you reduce the grant 
from sixteen millions to four millions, the senator from Illinois comes 
forward, and says that is a bribe held out to these people to accept the 
constitution. It is a queer way of bribing them to offer twelve million 
acres of land less than they claimed in their ordinance. 

Mr. President, so far as I am concerned, I am willing to deal fairly 
with this young state. I have dealt, so far as my vote went, fairly with 
other states in reference to these grants ; but I never saw the moment, 
from the first introduction of this constitution down to the present time, 
when I would have conceded to Kansas all that the ordinance attached 
to her constitution claimed for her. She had no right to set up any 



580 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

sucli claim. And if it be called compulsion, as the senator has intimated, 
to refuse admission to this state unless she will yield her exorbitant 
demands, I deny it. If it be said that in one sense this is a bribe, and 
in another sense it is an attempt to coerce Kansas, I deny as much the 
one as the other. It is no bribe, for the reason I have shown you. It 
is no compulsion, because Kansas has no more right than other states 
have had to make these exorbitant demands. Why, sir, if she can claim 
sixteen million acres, and say she will not come into the Union unless 
she gets it, why cannot she with the same propriety claim sixty or one 
hundred million acres of your lands, or claim them all ? She may justly 
claim to the outer verge all that has been granted to the other young 
states, but she can claim nothing more. Whatever she gets beyond that 
must be by the grace of Congress, and not because she has a right to 
demand it. I simply protest that it is no compulsion to say to Kansas, 
" we refuse your demands ; if you are not willing to come in as other 
states have come, then stay out." 

I shall be glad, Mr. President, to see this question settled on the 
terms proposed in the present bill, although, as I said, I do not like the 
terms. I suppose no southern senator does; very few northern men do; 
but I have been so accustomed to vote for things that I do not precisely 
like, that I have no great trouble in bringing my mind to the conclusion 
that I ought to vote for this. If I voted for nothing except that which 
I think precisely right, which commended itself in all respects to my 
judgment, I should be found on the negative side of most of your pro- 
positions. I believe that this measure will have a tendency to heal 
pending difficulties ; that it will bring peace and quiet, to some extent, 
to the country ; that it will open the way for a permanent and lasting 
peace between the sections ; and, if it have that effect, objectionable as 
it may be to me in many of its features, I shall feel justified in voting 
for it. If it fail in all this, I shall justify myself to my own conscience 
and the country on the ground that I so meant it — that it was so designed. 
If it fail of its objects, that will not be my fault. It is as good a pro- 
position as the original Senate bill. Nothing so good can now be 
obtained. It will do for all sections of the country — for the South as 
well as for the North ; and it is not decidedly bad for either. 

The features of this bill have, in many respects, been changed from 
the original Senate bill ; but I have not seen that they have been 
changed for the worse ; I rather think they have been improved. We 
have certainly got clear of some objectionable points, and we have 
brought into bolder relief others that are bad, but which a close observer 
would have found in the original. On the whole, for the reasons I have 
given, and for others, which the time and place and surrounding circum- 
stances forbid me to give, I shall vote for the bill ; and I send up my 
devoutest prayers that it may pass. 



ADMISSION OF OREGON. 581 



ADMISSION OF OREGON. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, MAY 6, 1858, ON THE ADMISSION OF OREGON INTO 

THE UNION. 

I RATHER think, sir, that I shall vote against the admission of this 
state, because, if our Republican friends desire to exclude a free state 
from the Union, it does not seem to me that I, representing a different 
interest politically, should interest myself particularly to get in such a 
state. If they asked for the admission of Oregon as a free state, I pro- 
bably should waive minor points, and go for the bill. If they put it dis- 
tinctly on the ground that Kansas had been admitted as a slave state, 
and that now justice and propriety require Oregon, under similar circum- 
stances, to come in as a free state, I could waive all minor considera- 
tions, and take her in ; but if they resist it, I rather think I shall go 
with them. It is no business of mine to be multiplying free states ; they 
are against my interest, and against the section of country from which I 
come. 

But, sir, there is a point in this debate that I do not exactly under- 
stand. Senators on the other side seem to be quite satisfied that Oregon 
has excluded slavery, but they go a step further, and object that she has 
excluded free negroes. It looks to me as if gentlemen from the free 
states are getting exceedingly anxious to multiply their free negro popu- 
lation. I thought there was some opposition in most of the free states 
to an increase of this kind of population. If there is a change of policy 
in that respect, I meet it half way. We have a large number of free 
negroes in my state of which we should be very glad to get clear, and 
if it be really true that gentlemen from northern states want them quar- 
tered oif on the free states of the Union, upon the young ones, and, of 
course, upon the old ones, then I shall urge a proposition to send all ours 
to Massachusetts and New York. [Laughter.] We have some four, 
thousand or five thousand, perhaps as many as eight thousand in Missis- 
sippi. We will divide them between New York and Massachusetts, and 
my good-natured friend before me [Mr. Wilson] can take charge of his 
part, and the senator from New York [Mr. Seward] can take charge of 
his part. Heretofore I have always understood that gentlemen from the 
Northern States were opposed to receiving this class of population. I 
have always known that they were anxious to make negroes free, and 
when they were free, I have understood they were very anxious to get 
clear of them. [Laughter.] I have known that a northern man would 
rise late at night and burn his last candle — I do not mean the whole 
northern people, but a large portion of them — to make a light by which 
he could see his way clear to pilfer somebody's negro ; but if you send 
him one perfectly free, born so, he would turn him loose, and have no- 
thing to do with him. An old gentleman in my state, a member of our 
legislature, suggested a good idea when they were talking of getting 
clear of our negro population. He said : " I will tell you exactly how 
it can be done ; take them two and two, handcuff them, take them up to 
the Kentucky shore above Louisville, advertise them for sale, and the 



582 ALBERT 0. BROWN. 

Abolitionists from Ohio will come and steal them ; but if you send them 
over without shackles they will not have them on any account." 
[Laughter.] 

What a mockery is all this sympathy with the negro, with his hard 
estate, with having him a free man equal to the white man, and yet 
northern gentlemen will no more allow him to go into their states than 
they would allow a pestilence to come in if they could prevent it ! They 
are willing to force them off on somebody else — to force Oregon to take 
them. I appeal to the senator from Massachusetts, now, are you willing 
to have the free negroes of the South quartered off on Massachusetts ? 
I may ask that question of the senator from New Hampshire [Mr. 
Hale], who is about to speak. I see it working in him, and he will get 
it out directly. [Laughter.] I ask him whether he would be willing to 
see all the free negroes of Mississippi and Louisiana quartered off on 
New Hampshire ? I dare say he will answer, with his usual frankness, 
that he would not. Where, then, are they to stay ? You insist on send- 
ing them to Oregon, forcing them on another people against their will, 
but you are not willing to take them yourselves. We are willing to keep 
our part of them until they choose to go somewhere else voluntarily, and 
when they go, we insist that they shall have the right to go. 

1 say again, I rather think I shall vote against the bill ; but if gentle- 
men on the other side will say that they are willing to take Oregon as a 
free state, and make no opposition to it, I do not know but that I may 
get over my little scruples, and vote for it ; but I am not going to force 
on myself another free state. I am not going to beg you to take another 
free state. If you ask it, and ask it genteelly and cleverly, I think we 
shall let you have it ; but we will not beg you to take it. 



INCREASE OF THE NAVY. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JUNE 7, 1858, ON THE 

INCREASE OF THE NAVY. 

I THINK, sir, the Senate will bear me witness that I do not belong to 
the category to which the senator from Tennessee has alluded — the war- 
making portion of the Senate. Since this English difficulty has existed, 
I have not said one word about it. I have purposely abstained from 
doing so ; and therefore no part of the remarks on that point, of the 
senator from Tennessee, has the slightest reference to me. I shall vote 
for this amendment with great pleasure. I should vote for it with more 
pleasure if it proposed to build twenty instead of ten ships. As to the 
size of the ships, I am unable to say, now, whether they are a proper 
size or not, and should be just as little able to say it the next year or 
the year following. The capacity of ships must necessarily be deter- 
mined upon by those who have the command of them, and those under 
wdiose supervision they are to be placed. It is impossible that I can 
ever understand what sized ships are best for naval purposes. I assume, 
necessarily, that the naval committee, charged with the settlement of 
that question, the Secretary of the Navy, and officers of the navy, who 



INCREASE OF THE NAVY. 583 

have been called into consultation, have properly considered that subject, 
and have made a proper recommendation. I feel that your navy is too 
small ; that there is a necessity for increasing it — a necessity which has 
existed for years, and exists in greater force now than at any former 
period. If the Secretary of the Navy, the naval committee, and the 
naval commanders, have made a false or improper recommendation as 
to the size of the ships, the responsibility must be upon them. If I 
could be better instructed at the end of six months than I am now, I 
might say, let us wait a little while ; but I shall not be. x\t the opening 
of the next session you will have to rely on the same sources of informa- 
tion on which you rely now, because each individual senator for himself 
can have but very slight information on a point of this kind, and he 
would not like to risk his own individual opinion against the opinion of 
the Secretary, the committee, and the officers of the navy. 

The senator from Virginia says, that at another time, when the trea- 
sury is full, he will be willing to vote for this supply. When will the 
treasury be fuller than it is now? No man can tell. When can you 
borrow upon better terms than you can borrow now ? Your credit, 
instead of rising, in case you get into difficulties with Great Britain, 
will fall, and fall rapidly. Instead of being able to borrow at three or 
four per cent, then, you will have to borrow at ten, fifteen, or twenty 
per cent., and perhaps at a higher rate. You now borrow because you 
choose to do it. Get into a war with England, and you will borrow 
because you are forced to do it ; and a forced loan, a loan when you are 
compelled to have it, is always obtained upon harsh terms. This is the 
only object for which I would agree to borrow money to any extent. I 
would not borrow money in any large sum to keep up your army. In 
the proper administration of your government, you have very little use 
for an army. About all the service it performs in time of peace is to 
watch Indians, and I very much agree with my venerable friend from 
Texas [Mr. Houston], that if you let the Indians alone, they want very 
little watching. But your flag, according to the declaration of gentle- 
men all around the chamber, has been insulted, again and again, on the 
sea. We have heard the senator from Tennessee recapitulate the simple 
facts that war speeches have been made on both sides of the chamber, 
speeches calculated to stir up the blood of young America, speeches 
calculated to excite English spirit, if she be acting upon a system, 
speeches calculated to produce an issue, to bring the two governments 
face to face — that you must either have a fight or have a back out, on 
one side or the other. English courage never has receded from a con- 
flict, nor has the courage of America. I hope that at the last hour we 
are not to shrink from the conflict, and do it on the miserable plea that, 
after all the boasting we have had here, we are unprepared for war. Do 
gentlemen calculate that their speeches are to be read in the British 
Parliament, by British statesmen, and no notice taken of them ? Do 
gentlemen calculate that Great Britain is to take down her flag, and not 
to stand up to any national position she has assumed ? If they make 
such calculation, then, let me say, history does not justify their making 
it. If they are quite assured that the recent transactions in the Gulf of 
Mexico are unauthorized, then their speeches were unworthy of sena- 
tors. I supposed that those speeches were made because there Avas 
a settled conviction on the minds of senators that Great Britain did 



584 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

authorize these outraores, that we were talking, not to the poor creature 
who commands the Styx or the Buzzard, but that we were talking to 
Lord Derby and his council, that Ave were talking to the queen upon the 
throne. If we were, if that was the view of the subject, then senators 
ought to consider that the words uttered here are not light and frivolous 
words, and will not be so considered and treated by the world, but that 
these bold words ought to be backed by bold and manly actions. 

Mr. President, I know very well that, in case of a conflict with Great 
Britain, the great burden is to fall on that section of the country from 
which I come, and upon no portion of it more heavily than upon. my 
own state. Mine is a cotton state ; purely a cotton-producing state. 
We sell scarcely a penny's worth of anything else than that great staple, 
and Great Britain is our best customer ; but T say before the Senate to- 
day, and before the world, that, sooner than allow my flag to be insulted, 
I would have my people carry every bale of their cotton to New Orleans 
and Mobile, to make barricades, and, if necessary, I would put the torch 
to it, and burn up every fibre of it, without one sixpence of insurance 
from any quarter. With me, sir, the defence of the flag is the first 
great duty of an American patriot, and I would defend it, cost what it 
may. But I should talk idly if I said I was for a war with Great Bri- 
tain. I want no Avar Avith her. I want her to respect the rights of 
these states united ; I Avant her to pay proper deference to the glorious 
banner of the stars and stripes. If she refused that, I would not stop 
an instant to count the cost in dollars and cents — nay, sir, not in blood 
and life. I endorse Avhat my friend from Tennessee has said, that these 
violent speeches, unbacked by acts, amount to little. When they are 
carried across the Atlantic, and are read there, British statesmen can- 
not fail to see that this is mere bravado ; that you will talk valiantly to 
the populace about war, but when it comes to preparation you do not 
make the preparation. 

It is confessed, now, that you have not an available naval force to 
vindicate your flag in the Gulf of Mexico. Who does not know that 
that is true ? How often has it been stated here, without contradiction, 
that the British guns in the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico out- 
number yours more than two to one, and that you have not an additional 
force to send there ? Yet, in the face of these facts, gentlemen have 
talked of Avar, of blowing Great Britain out of the sea, capturing her 
vessels, and bringing them into port, holding them as hostages, and all 
that ! If you mean to meet an issue with a government like Britain, 
you have a very different game before you ; and it is high time you com- 
menced preparing for the conflict. These war speeches have satisfied 
me that there is danger, imminent danger ; that, if you vindicate the 
honor of your flag, you will have Avar. I do not say that you will have 
it absolutely, but that there is danger of it ; and, in the face of that 
danger, I will provide for the contingency in advance of its coming. 
Let us have the twelve sloops. I repeat, again, I am sorry the com- 
mittee did not propose twenty. Twenty would not be half enough. 
Better borrow the money noAv, Avhen you can get it at three or four per 
cent., than stumble headlong into Avar, and borroAv at tAvelve, fourteen, 
fifteen, or perhaps twenty, or even a higher percentage. 

But even in a time of profound peace you need the vessels. If there 
was no menacing anyAvhere, I might say that, inasmuch as there is no 



FRANKING PRIVILEGE. 585 

pressing necessity for it, I will not go for an increase of the navy ; but 
in view of the present danger I am for the increase, cost what it may. 
I think it will have a wholesome effect on diplomacy. While I would not 
undertake to menace a power like Great Britain, because she is not a 
power to be menaced or bullied, yet I think if she saw that you were 
backing up your bold words by equally bold and valiant deeds, she 
would not be quite so likely to be so overbearing and haughty as a nation 
as we know her to be — as she would be — if you simply talk and do 
nothing. I am for backing up all we have said by equally bold deeds. 
I am not finding fault with gentlemen now for talking. It is all well 
enough. Up to this hour I have taken no part in it ; but I choose to 
put my declaration on the record not only in favor of vindicating the 
flag on this question in words, but in favor of preparing to do it by 
deeds. These sloops, if you build them, will not encumber your 
navy. Your navy is not, it never has been, large enough.^ Your coast 
has been extended. If you had no further service for it,^ your coast 
has more than doubled within the last fifteen years ; there is a greater 
amount of coastwise trade to guard on both sides of the continent. It 
requires a greater expenditure ; and if there be grumbling among the 
people about the expenditure, the answer is easy : " You insisted upon 
the addition to the country ; you knew, when you were getting all this 
coast, that it would need defence ; if you are a sensible and thinking 
people, you must have seen it would involve an expenditure to protect 
it, and keep it, and maintain it." I am for increasing the navy from 
ten sloops up to twenty, and I would vote for forty. 



FRANKING PRIVILEGE. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES JUNE 14, 1858, ON THE 
ABOLITION OF THE FRANKING PRIVILEGE. 

I SHALL vote against this report for several reasons. In the first place, 
I see nothing in the idea of objecting to general legislation on an appro- . 
priation bill. How often during this session, and every other session of ^ 
Congress, has it been done by both Houses ? This is an objection urged 
to a measure which is distasteful to gentlemen, just as the same argu- 
ment has been urged a hundred times before ; and it is only urged by 
those to whom the measure is distasteful. If it were pleasant to them 
they would swallow it in both Houses, of course without a word ; but it 
is an argument lugged in by the ears and shaken in the face of the 
Senate, every time anything is proposed which chances to be a little 
distasteful to gentlemen. If we could get back to the original principle, 
and put nothing but appropriations on appropriation bills, I should be 
very willing to stand upon that principle now and through all time to 
come ; but we have not done it, and we are not going to do it. 

Then what is there in the argument about prolonging the session ? 
Suppose the House of Representatives do bring the session abruptly to 
a close by the loss of this bill : the President has the power, and he will 
exercise it, to tell them to come back, take their seats, and discharge 



586 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

the duty for which they are paid. The session can as well last to the 
first Monday of December, as come abruptly to a close when the clock 
points to the hour of six this evening ; and it will not cost the govern- 
ment a sixpence to prolong it to that time. I protest against the 
argument, that gentlemen who are paid by the year to transact the 
public business must hasten abruptly to close the session of Congress, 
and that, upon the declaration that they cannot stay any longer, we are 
to give up important measures. Are public and private rights to be 
trampled under foot because gentlemen do not choose to stay here, and 
do what they are paid to do ? Such an argument rather inclines me to 
stand upon the Senate amendments, let the bill fall, and let the Presi- 
dent call gentlemen back, and teach them their duty by the strong arm 
of constitutional power. 

Then it is said : " these are small points ; we can give them up ; it 
will not cost anything to give them up." A small point, sir, not to 
increase the rate of postage, when your Post Office Department is cost- 
ing you more than two million dollars over its revenue ! 

Mr. Toombs. I will mention to ray friend that there are $3,500,000 
appropriated in this very bill, out of the treasury, independent of what 
goes through the Navy Depa.rtment. 

Mr. Brown. I was not very accurate about the figures. I knew it 
was a large sum. Gentlemen speak of this as a small thing ; they say 
it amounts to little. You are going into the market to borrow money. 
You borrowed $20,000,000 at the opening of the session, and now you 
are to borrow $20,000,000 at the close. There is an executive message 
on the table, telling you that these loans can by no possibility keep 
you going until beyond the first of January next ; and yet you refuse 
to increase the rates of postage, when your post office establishment is 
thrown on the treasury at an annual expense of $3,500,000 above its 
revenue. I think it is rather a large point. I do not think $3,500,000 
are thus to be lightly thrown aside. 

Now let me ask you, Mr. President, how is a large portion of the 
deficiency in the post office revenue created ? It is on account of the 
franking privilege, to which gentlemen adhere with the tenacity of a 
dying man, and which it seems they will, under no circumstances, agree 
to surrender. They would sacrifice an important bill, compel the Presi- 
dent to reconvene Congress, do anything, rather than give up this 
sacred privilege, as I suppose they regard it — a privilege which, to most 
members of Congress, is a burden. But, sir, I ask again, whether the 
franking privilege does not create a large portion of the deficiency in 
the post office revenues ? I assert that it does, and I will tell you why. 
Within the last eighteen months, more than eighteen hundred tons of 
free matter have passed through the Washington City Post Office from 
members of Congress alone — enough to load a large-sized ship, enough 
to load two ordinary steamboats. This free matter has gone out ; 
and where has it gone to ? So long as it is upon your railroads and 
upon your four-horse stage coach lines, it gets along, I grant you, 
without much additional cost ; but it gets to a point v/here it must 
necessarily be packed on horseback, and it accumulates there to the 
extent of five or six hundred pounds. It does not take a great many of 
your eight large volumes of Pacific Railroad surveys, Congressional 
Globes, and other heavy books, to amount to a large weight. What 



FRANKING PRIVILEGE. 587 

happens then ? The horse mail cannot carry them ; there is a complaint 
to the Postmaster General that mail matter is piled up there and the 
service is insuflBcient. He sends out a printed circular to have the mail 
weighed. They always weigh it about the time these big documents get 
there. The report is made that three or four or five hundred pounds 
have accumulated, which the mail-carrier cannot lug away. It stays 
there for a month or two ; the postmaster weighs it again and sends 
back another report; and, finally, the Postmaster General, or one of his 
subordinates, is satisfied that an increase of service is necessary ; and on 
that little horse route, where a pony could take the whole of the paying 
matter, you put on four-horse coaches to carry your documents, at an 
increased cost of thousands of dollars where the service was before per- 
formed amply for hundreds. It is done in my state, done in every state 
of the Union ; and you have to-day not less than five thousand miles of 
coach service which was established for nothing on God's earth but to 
pack your franked documents. They run backwards with a little amount 
of paid matter that any man could carry in his hat. That happens in 
every state in the Union ; you sum up at the end of the year five or six 
million dollars for carrying the mails. Take your free matter out of 
that ; reduce your coach service, by giving one month's extra pay pro- 
vided by law to an inferior grade of service ; increase your postage to 
five cents instead of three ; and the Post Office Department, in two 
years, will support itself and probably have a surplus ; and yet, in the 
face of these things, gentlemen say, " this is a small matter, not worth 
controversy about; it is vastly less than compelling Congress to sit here 
a day or two longer." I think it is worth a contest which should com- 
pel Congress to sit here until the first Monday of December next. It 
costs your treasury nothing to make you stay. Therefore it was that, 
on Saturday night, when my friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Bigler] pro- 
posed to introduce a resolution fixing another hour of adjournment, I 
objected to it. Introduce a resolution to abrogate any time of adjourn- 
ment, and I shall have no objection. The House this morning took a 
different course, and we have agreed to adjourn at six o'clock. I hope 
we shall do so, and I hope we shall do it without this bill having seen 
daylight. Let it die, and let the President exercise his constitutional 
prerogative of reconvening Congress ; and when gentlemen are brought 
back, they will sit down in sober earnestness to the discharge of those 
great legislative duties imposed upon them by the Constitution, and 
which, in their compact with the people, they have agreed faithfully, and 
as efficiently as they could, to perform. 



588 ALBERT G. BROWN. 



SPEECH 

DELIVERED AT HAZLEHURST, MISSISSIPPI, ON THE 11th OF SEPTEMBER, 

1858. 

Fellow Citizens : I am profoundly grateful for this manifestation of 
your kindness. On many occasions I have confessed before you the 
depths to which my heart had been penetrated by your partiality. But 
the presence of this multitude, and the cordiality of its greeting, so over- 
whelms me, that I can neither attempt to express my gratitude nor 
describe the emotions which swell my bosom. If I have been a faithful 
exponent of your principles in the past, I offer you that as the best 
guarantee that I will be so in the future. It has been my good fortune 
to have retained your confidence for a long series of years, and to you, 
I think, I may appeal with safety, if I ever resorted to the arts of the 
demagogue, or failed to speak out my sentiments when called on. 

To-day, having no favors to ask, and no responsibility to shun, I am 
more than ever resolved to speak plainly. It would be a libel on my 
past life to disguise my real sentiments ; and besides now, more than at 
any other time, there is need for every patriot wearing his heart upon 
his sleeve. 

You will naturally expect of me, just returned as I am, from the 
theatre of the late stirring scenes in Congress, some account of what 
was said and done, and some intimation of my opinions as to the bearing 
which present events are to have on the future of our country, and 
especially on your future. I shall proceed calmly to fulfil that expec- 
tation. 

When Congress met in December, it was apparent to every one that 
the slavery question was to be the great issue of the session. True, we 
had settled it — we had compromised it — we had fixed its finality — 
we had taken it out of Congress. But like an evil spirit it had come 
back upon us. 

To say nothing of the compromises of 1850, and other kindred legis- 
lation before and since, Congress, in 1854, had passed the bill commonly 
called the Kansas act. In this act it was solemnly stipulated that 
Congress would, in future, abstain from all interference with domestic 
slavery in the states or territories ; and it was as solemnly afiirmed, 
that for ever thereafter the people were to be left perfectly free to 
regulate that institution for themselves, and in their own way. This 
Kansas act was amazingly popular in the South at the time of its pas- 
sage, and why, I certainly could never tell. With me it was never a 
favorite measure, and if I had been "left perfectly free" to do as I 
pleased, my vote would, in all probability, have been cast against it. 
One feature it had which strongly recommended it to my favor. It pro- 
posed the repeal of the Missouri restriction. That measure I had always 
regarded as unconstitutional. If my speeches, in the congressional 
canvass of 1839, had been preserved, they would have shown that I so 
regarded it then. In 1848, soon after my return to Congress in that 
year, and on the first opportunity, I thus characterized this restriction : 



SPEECH AT HAZLEHURST. 589 

" It was a ^fungus and excrescence, a political monstrosity.' It was 
the first, greatest, and most fatal error in our legislation on the subject 
of slavery. It violated at once the rights of one-half the Union, and 
flagrantly outraged the Federal Constitution." 

With these opinions long cherished, well settled, and firmly fixed in 
my own mind, I could not well vote against any bill which proposed a 
repeal of this odious measure; and yet, as my friends know, I was near 
voting against the Kansas bill. There was that in it which never met 
my approbation. There was that left out which ought to have been put 
in, if it was designed to work fairly and justly on the diversified interests 
of the whole country. 

The feature which most commended it to the favor of other people 
only tended to make it the more obnoxious to me. I allude to what is 
commonly called the popular sovereignty feature. I have so often 
expressed my opinion of this doctrine of popular sovereignty, both in 
and out of Congress, that I shall not pause to do it here. I have always 
regarded it as a wicked cheat, or a mischievous humbug. If it only 
means that the people have the right to govern themselves in their own 
way, subordinate to the Constitution and written laws, then it is a cheat, 
for there is nothing new in that doctrine. The people have had that 
right ever since the Declaration of Independence. If it means that the 
people may govern themselves in their own way, in disregard of the 
Constitution, and in contempt of the written law, then it is a mischievous 
humbug. The people can have no such right. Believing at the time, 
that the enunciation of a new doctrine like this was fraught with mis- 
chief, I denounced it. I predicted that it would lead to open disregard 
of law, violation of the Constitution, and contempt of the legally consti- 
tuted authorities of the country. You have seen an army sent to put 
down rebellion, run mad, in Utah ; you have seen Kansas trample the 
federal authority under foot ; you have seen the authority of the Presi- 
dent defied, and the decision of the Supreme Court disregarded in almost 
every Northern State. And all for why ? The people had been told 
that of this new doctrine, and in its name they acted. It was useless to 
tell them that popular sovereignty meant only that they might vote as 
they pleased, and through the proper channels, change their laws, and 
even abolish one constitution and substitute another in its stead, if they 
would go through the proper form — all that they could do before, and 
they knew it ; therefore they rationally concluded that popular sove- * 
reignty meant something more. It never occurred to them that great 
men would teach, as new, a doctrine which was as old as the Declaration 
of Independence, and just as familiar to every school-boy as his A B C's. 
They, therefore, concluded that they had only to declare for or against 
any measure, and in any mode that suited them, and their will, so 
expressed, became the supreme law. Brigham Young, and his saintly 
followers, declared in favor of popular sovereignty — set up their own 
laws, and the acts of Congress and the Constitution vanished from Utah. 
Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, and their followers, declared against 
the fugitive slave law and the Dred Scott decision, and they fell. How 
could they stand ? The popular sovereigns decreed against them. Jim 
Lane and his robber gang, in Kansas, set all law, order, and decency, at . 
defiance, and in the name of popular sovereignty murdered the people, 
pillaged their houses, and drove their defenceless families into the wilder- 



590 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

ness, or without the limits of the territory. This is but a leaf from the 
history of this new doctrine, and it does not impress me favorably with 
its working. It inclines me to stand firmly where I stood at first, and 
declare now, as I declared then, that it is a wicked cheat, or a mis- 
chievous humbug. 

It was in the pursuit of this idea of letting the people govern them- 
selves in their own way, regardless of law, and the guarantees and the 
requirements of the Constitution, that the Topeka, Leavenworth, and 
other constitutions, were gotten up in Kansas, and thrust into Congress 
in antagonism to the Lecompton constitution. There was no pretence 
that every requirement of the law and the Constitution had not been 
complied with in the formation of the Lecompton Constitution. The law 
and the Constitution had been pursued to a punctilio. But it was said 
more people had participated in the formation of some other constitution 
than in that at Lecompton, and therefore "popular sovereignty" required 
us to reject the one that had the stamp of law and order upon it, and 
take the one offered by the multitude. For one I refused to do it. I 
reverence law and revere the Constitution, and I respect the will of the 
people when expressed in obedience to the one and the other. But I 
have no respect for the public will when it comes to me over laws pros- 
trated and constitutions violated. 

The point made against the Lecompton constitution was, that it had 
never been submitted to the people for their ratification or rejection. 
This complaint came from the enemies, not the friends of that constitu- 
tion. Of all those who had part or lot in framing it, not one made 
complaint. They had the power and the right to support it, if they chose. 
They did not choose to do it, and with me their action was final. The 
enemies of the constitution insisted on its submission. They wanted 
another chance to kill it. I had early learned, from the horn-books of the 
law, that a child is not to be put to nurse with those who are interested 
in its death, and I therefore refused obedience to the demands of those 
who sought another opportunity to slaughter the Lecompton constitution. 

It amazed me that the friends par excellence of popular sovereignty 
should be the first to insist on the submission of this constitution. It 
v/as in vain that we showed them the people who made the constitution 
did not ask its submission. They only became the more clamorous. 
The truth was, it was a pro-slavery constitution. If it had been an an- 
ti-slavery constitution, like the constitution of California, it would have 
been accepted, no odds what irregularities had marked its formation. 
It is true, when I made this point in the debate. Senators Douglas and 
Stuart both denied that they were governed by any such consideration. 
No denial came from Senators Seward, Wilson, Wade, or any of their 
peculiar friends. The denial of senators upon their honor precluded 
then, as it precludes now, any question as to the motives which governed 
them. But I did not fail to note that both Douglas and Stuart voted 
for California — a free state — though in no single particular was there 
the slightest pretence that her constitution had been regularly formed. 

And now, fellow-citizens, having mentioned the name of Douglas, 
allow me to digress so far as to say my sympathies are not with those 
who indulge in wholesale denunciation of him. He is more honest, 
more consistent, more the friend to the Constitution and the rights of 
the states, and a better Democrat than nine-tenths of those in the free 



SPEECH AT HAZLEHURST. 591 

states who abuse him. He is a giant in intellect, a giant m will, a giant 
in eloquence, a giant in everything that makes up the characteristics of 
a great man, and I hope he may thrash Abolition Lincoln out of his 
boots. 

I need not say that I differed with Douglas on the Kansas-Lecompton 
question. We met in debate — we discussed the question, I hope, like 
senators — we differed in the end, as we had differed in the beginning ; 
but we parted as we had met, friends. 

If I could get a man of my own faith, I would gladly take him. 
But God forbid that I should discard a great man like Douglas, who 
differs with me on one point, and take a small man like Lincoln, who 
agrees with me in nothing. 

But to the question. After a long and tedious debate in both houses 
of Congress, it became apparent that it was impossible to admit Kansas 
as a state under the Lecompton constitution. We had, therefore, to 
abandon the contest, and give the enemy the only victory they had 
sought — the exclusion of pro-slavery Kansas — or we had to resort to 
some other expedient. Mr. Montgomery, a representative from Penn- 
sylvania, and Mr. Crittenden, the venerable and distinguished senator 
from Kentucky, each brought forward a project. The time may come 
when their propositions, and especially Mr. Crittenden's, may have to 
be discussed before the people. For the present, it is suflEicient to say 
they were both rejected, no friend of the Lecompton (pro-slavery) con- 
stitution, in either House of Congress, giving to either of them the 
slightest countenance or support, so far as I know or believe. 

In this state of affairs the two Houses of Congress, through their re- 
spective committees, met for consultation. The result was the pro- 
duction of the "English conference bill," and of that I come now to 
speak. It figured conspicuously in the last act of the drama, and de- 
serves a passing notice. 

By this bill the friends of the Lecompton constitution proposed to 
admit Kansas as a state, and then leave the people of the territory 
free to decide for themselves whether they would accept the act of ad- 
mission or not. There was some propriety in this, growing out of the fact 
that Congress had already determined to reject certain conditions pro- 
posed by Kansas in regard to the public lands and other important 
interests. 

I, for one, never believed that Congress had the right to take a terri- 
tory by the ears and drag her into the Union nolens volens. And 
while I would not listen to a proposition to remand the constitution 
tendered by the people of a territory asking admission, and require 
them to vote on it whether they desired to do so or not, I thought it 
proper in the case of Kansas to allow her people to decide for them- 
selves whether they were in the Union as a state after we had rejected 
a portion of their proposition and materially altered other parts of it. 
If Kansas refused to accept the act of admission, and thus determined 
for herself that she was not in the Union, then it was stipulated in the 
"English conference bill" that she remain out until she had the re- 
quisite federal population to entitle her to one representative in Con- 
gress, that being, according to the existing ratio, 93,420. Against 
this bill the whole power that had defeated the original Senate bill 
arrayed itself, with the exception of some six or eight members of the 



592 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

House of Representatives, and these gave the friends of tlie measure 
barely votes enough to carry it. For the bill every southern senator 
and representative voted, except Gen. Quitman, and Mr. Bonham of 
South Carolina. That Gen. Quitman voted against it was never a 
matter of serious regret to me, and certainly I never dreamed of re- 
proaching him for it. If he could speak from the grave to-day, he 
would bear me willing testimony that I said to him more than once, if 
he was censured for his vote, I would stand by him and defend him. 
It was one of those points on which gentlemen entertaining similar 
views on most questions might well differ. Gen. Quitman differed with 
the great body of his southern friends, and following the dictates of 
his conscience, he voted against the bill. In that act, standing alone, 
or with but a single ally, against all his southern friends, he showed a 
moral heroism worthy of a Spartan. It was a heroism before which 
the sublime history written by him on the walls of Mexico might pale 
and hide its head. To oppose the enemies of one's country on the 
field of battle, requires courage, but to oppose one's friends united, on 
the floors of Congress, and on a vital question, requires heroism such as 
few men possess. Quitman was equal to the task. 

It is not certain that Gen. Quitman was Avrong. Kansas has refused 
the terms of admission, and already we hear it proposed to disregard 
the stipulation in respect to population, and admit her as a free state. 
It was this stipulation that commanded my vote; I know it commanded 
other votes. Many of us thought it best, all things considered, that 
Kansas should remain out of the Union for some time to come. And 
though we went for her admission under the Lecompton constitution — 
if that failed, we felt quite willing to see her excluded until she had 
population enough to give her at least one member of Congress. We 
entered into that bargain. We enacted our agreement into a law ; and, 
for one, I shall insist on carrying it out in good faith. When Kansas 
presents herself, with a census fairly taken, showing that she has the 
representative population required, I shall vote to admit her, and I 
shall not do it before. 

I observe that the New York Herald, the Richmond Enquirer, and 
other kindred sheets, are urging the abandonment of the English bill, 
and the speedy admission of Kansas, as the only means of saving the 
Democratic party in 1860. If the Democratic party can only be saved 
by means like this, then the sooner it sinks the better. And I have 
this farther to say, that whenever the Democratic party consents to be 
led by such men as edit the New York Herald and Richmond Enquirer, 
it is time for the old guard to strike, their colors. 

We have had quite enough of sacrificing principle to expediency. I 
want no more of it, and I will have no more. For the National 
Democratic party I entertain profound respect. It is the last bulwark 
of the Union; when it falls the Union will fall with it. But if it re- 
quires another compromise, and another sacrifice of southern rights, to 
save it, it may go. 

The original Kansas bill was never a favorite measure of mine, and 
the last one was still less to my notion. But I had seen the South 
give up California and content herself with but a feeble foothold 
in Utah and in New Mexico. I have seen men stricken down for in- 
sisting on the extreme measure of justice, and I did not feel quite 



SPEECH AT HAZLEHURST. 593 

certain that I s*liould be sustained if I demanded more than the^e bills 
contained. Let it not be supposed that I am in the habit of looking 
home for instructions as to how I shall cast my votes. But I have 
served long enough in Congress to know how utterly powerless a repre- 
sentative becomes, and especially on those sectional issues, the instant 
he is not sustained by his people. For this reason, I confess I have 
felt very great anxiety to have your approval in what I did. I tell you 
now what I am going to do for the future, and I hope you will give me 
your countenance and support. In all the opposition I may wage 
against the premature admission of Kansas, I know I shall be sustaining 
the well-settled views of the President. Mr. Buchanan is sound on this 
point. 

The national administration is as sound on the slavery question, and 
as true to the South, as any national administration will ever be. While 
Mr. Buchanan desires to do justice to us, and protect us in our rights, 
his judgment is swayed by that power at the North which is resolutely 
bent on taking possession of the government. It is the force of public 
opinion and not the want of good will on the part of leading statesmen 
at the North, that constantly drives the government into acts of hostility 
to the South. Selfish politicians at first tampered with a mawkish sen- 
timentality, and now, instead of controlling it, they are controlled by it. 
Mr. Buchang,n is sounder at this time than many southern statesmen, 
mainly because he is old, has nothing more to ask, and nothing to do 
but his duty. If northern and southern demagogues would let him 
alone, he would generally do right. But they scare him with hobgoblin 
stories about breaking up the Democratic party in 1860 and the election 
of an Abolitionist, and the final downfall of the Union, and all that, 
and then right away he does something wrong, 

I never doubted that Mr. Buchanan was right on the Nicaragua ques- 
tion on the start, and I have just as little doubt that he is all wrong now. 
That Walker had the sympathy of the President when he set out for 
Central America, I think is certain ; that he ought to have retained it is 
just as certain. I am not saying that Walker is the man of destiny his 
friends have claimed him to be. I think he is not. I do not say he is 
the most proper man to conduct an expedition such as he set on foot. It 
is very likely he is not. But he was doing us a good service, and he ought 
to have been let alone. Under his lead, before this, Nicaragua would 
have been a thriving and prosperous state out of the Union. But in an 
evil hour the President listened to evil councils, and Walker's expedition 
was broken up, and himself brought back a prisoner of state. I expressed 
myself pretty freely about this transaction at the time, and I shall not 
now repeat what I said then ; but there is a branch of the subject to 
which I want to call your special attention. 

About the time Walker was fitting out his expedition, and while he 
felt very certain, if he did not violate the laws, he would not be molested, 
the Secretary of State entered into a treaty with a Mr. Irissari, the 
stipulations of which I assume, for I do not pretend in this connection 
to have seen the treaty, were inconsistent with any continued sympathy 
or countenance to Walker on the part of the government. 

This brings me to consider, first, what interest we had in the Nicaragua 
question; and next, which plan, the Walker plan or the Cass-Irissari 
plan, is most likely to subserve our purposes. First, I assume that we 
38 



59i ALBERT G. BROWN. 

are directly interested, and to a deep extent, in planting a slaveholding 
state in Nicaragua, We are so, because slavery must go South, if it 
goes at all. If Walker had been allowed to succeed, he would have 
planted such a state, and the Southern States would have populated it. 
It is against our interest to have an anti-slave state planted in our front. 
We all know that such a state must, sooner or later, come into the Union, 
and help to swell that hostile power at the North which has already 
given us so much trouble. And that being in our front, it will stand 
ready at all times to arrest our progress. The plan for colonizing 
Central America, as foreshadowed in the Cass-Irissari treaty, is through 
the agency of the American Transit Company. That company has its 
headquarters in Wall street and State street. If Central America is 
ever .colonized through its agency, it will, at the same time, be Aboli- 
tionized. Of this I have no doubt. I was for Walker, because I thought 
he was giving us a slaveholding state. I was against Cass and Irissari, 
because they were giving us an Abolition state. 

It may seem strange to you that I thus talk of taking possession of 
Central America, or any part of it, seeing, as you suppose you do, that 
it belongs to some one else. Yes, it belonged to some one else, just as 
this country once belonged to the Choctaws. When we wanted this 
country we came and took it. If we want Central America, or any part 
of it, I would go and take that. If the inhabitants were willing to live 
under a good government, such as we would give them, I would have 
them protected ; and if they were not, they might go somewhere else. I 
suppose sentiments like these will startle all fogydom, and I shall be set 
down as a regular fire-eating filibuster. Very well ; I have heard people 
whine over the white man's cruelty to Indians before, but American 
statesmen did not heed it, and the result is that stately mansions have 
taken the place of Indian wigwams, and railroads have obliterated the 
Indian war-path. It is said, I know, that these Central American semi- 
barbarians, conglomerate of Indian, negro, and Celt, have been recog- 
nised by some of the powers of Europe as independent states. Well, 
suppose they have. Would not the same powers have recognised the 
Choctaws, Chickasaws, and every other Indian tribe, as independent, if 
our government had not interposed to prevent it ? We have treaties 
ourselves with the Central American States. So we have with the Indian 
tribes. But these treaties, no odds how worded, have never stood in the 
way of our taking their land when the expansion of our people and the 
spread of civilization required us to have it. No, no ; this is all fudge and 
fustian, signifying nothing. If we want Central America, the cheapest, 
easiest, and quickest way to get it is to go and take it, and if France and 
England interfere, read the Monroe doctrine to them. 

If any one desires to know why I want a foothold in Central America, 
I avow frankly it is because I want to plant slavery there ; I think 
slavery is a good thing per se ; I believe it to be a great moral, social, 
and political blessing — a blessing to the master and a blessing to the 
slave, and I believe, moreover, that it is of Divine origin. I said so in 
the House of Representatives at Washington, on the 30th of January, 
1850, and I say so now — I said so then, because I thought so then — I 
say so now, because I think so yet. 

That slavery is a blessing to the master, is shown by simply contrast- 
ing a southern gentleman with a northern abolitionist. One is courage- 



SPEECH AT HAZLEHURST. 595 

ous, high-bred, and manly. The other is cowardly, low flung, and 
sneaking. The slave is blessed with a sound health, a sleek skin, and 
Christian instruction — the free African is dwarfed by disease, scrofulous 
from hunger, and is a barbarian and a cannibal. That it is of divine 
origin is proven by the Bible ; in no line of that blessed book is slavery 
reprobated ; in many places it is directly sanctioned. The angel of the 
Lord, we are told, captured Hagar and took her home to her mistress. 
Onesimus was a fugitive Avhen captured by Paul, and though slavery 
existed in the time of the Saviour, neither he nor the disciples preached 
against it. What God has ordained, cannot be wrong. What Omnipo- 
tence sustains, fanaticism cannot throw down. But to the point. 

I want a footing in Central America for other reasons, or rather for 
a continuation of the reasons already given. I want Cuba, and I know 
that sooner or later we must have it. If the worm-eaten throne of 
Spain is willing to give it up for a fair equivalent, well — if not, we must 
take it. I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican 
States ; and I want them all for the same reason — for the planting or 
spreading of slavery. And a footing in Central America will powerfully 
aid us in acquiring those other states. It will render them less valuable 
to the other powers of the earth, and thereby diminish competition with 
us. Yes, I want these countries for the spread of slavery. I would 
spread the blessings of slavery, like the religion of our Divine Master, 
to the uttermost ends of the earth, and rebellious and wicked as the 
Yankees have been, I would even extend it to them. I would not force 
it upon them, as I would not force religion upon them, but I would 
preach it to them, as I w^ould preach the gospel. They are a stiff-necked 
and rebellious race, and I have little hope that they will receive the 
blessing, and I would therefere prepare for its spread to other more 
favored lands. 

I may be asked if I am in favor of reopening the African slave-trade. 
Not yet. I think it not practicable ; and as yet it would not be wise, 
if it were practicable. We can never reopen that trade while the Union 
lasts, unless we can multiply the number of slaveholding states. This 
we can never do, unless we acquire more territory. Whether we can 
obtain the territory while the Union lasts, I do not know ; I fear we 
cannot. But I would make an honest effort, and if we failed, I would 
go out of the Union and try it there. I speak plainly. I would make 
a refusal to acquire territory because it was to be slave territory, a cause 
for disunion, just as I would make the refusal to admit a new state 
because it was to be a slave state, a cause for disunion. 

I have said it would not be wise, if it were practicable, to reopen the 
slave-trade now. The South wants a large white population, and this 
she wants worse than she does cheap slave labor. I doubt the economy 
of cheap labor in the cotton states, under the present organization of 
society. Its first effect would be to check white immigration, and to 
drive away a valuable and reliable part of our present population. With 
a greater expansion of territory and wider fields for the great staples, 
sugar and tobacco, as well as cotton, to say nothing of fruits and vege- 
tables, we should need an importation of black laborers ; and in that case 
I should be willing to take them from Africa. At present their intro- 
duction here would reduce our white population, and thus diminish our 



596 • ALBERT G. BROWN. 

chances for acquiring Central America, Cuba, and the northern states 
of Mexico. 

If we mean to increase our white population, and thereby our weight 
in the Union, or if we mean to retain our present population and thereby 
retain our present weight, the way to do it is to keep up the wages of 
labor. This cannot be done by the introduction of cheap laborers. 

It is clear to my mind that if we have more land than laborers, then 
we ought not to acquire any more territory, at least for the present, 
and therefore the acquisition of Cuba, the colonization of Central 
America, and all kindred questions, must be postponed. If, on the other 
hand, labor is trenching, is close upon the lands — I mean lands worth 
» cultivating — then we ought to get more land before we get more labor, 
since labor without land will be a burthen rather than a profit. 

I do not know that I understand the purpose of those who are urging 
this question of reopening the slave-trade. If it be to agitate the public 
mind and still further prepare it for disunion, then I can only say to 
those engaged in it, they are defeating their own object. The South was 
V never so near united as now. The introduction of this question will sow 
the seeds of discord, and create wide-spread divisions where there is 
now almost perfect harmony. 

Of the constitutional power of Congress to repeal the laws prohibit- 
ing the slave-trade, there can be no question. The language of the 
Constitution is permissive, not mandatory. Congress shall not prohibit 
the introduction of African slaves prior to 1808, says the Constitution, 
thereby implying that it may, not that it shall, do it after that time. 
In the exercise of the power, Congress went out of its way to denounce 
the traffic as piracy. This was a gratuitous affront to the South. It 
implied that the trade was inherently wrong, and involved the highest 
degree of moral turpitude. No such thing is true. If it be piracy to 
traffic in slaves between the coast of Africa and the United States, it 
will be difficult to show that it is anything less to carry on the trade 
between Virginia and Mississippi. It is piracy simply because the law 
so denounces it ; there is in it no inherent moral guilt. 

This denunciation of the slave-trade as piracy has involved us in a 
long series of international disputes with Great Britain, which, thanks 
to the wisdom and moderation of Mr. Buchanan's administration, has 
just now been settled. Great Britain has not relinquished the right of 
search, as some people have supposed. She had no such right to relinquish. 
But she has done at last what she ought to have done at first ; she has 
said that, inasmuch as the laws — her own as well as ours — denounce the 
African slave-trade as piracy, she will search suspected vessels ; if they 
turn out to be slavers, it is well — nobody will complain ; if otherwise, 
she will make instant and ample reparation. The objection to this, if 
objection there be, will be found in the law, and not in the course which 
Great Britain means in the future to pursue. Pirates are the enemies 
of the whole human family, and all mankind are authorized, without 
special warrant, to destroy them. If, however, in pursuing pirates, 
innocent and unoftending parties are molested, the offenders must pay 
damages. Any one of you may pursue a thief or a murderer, and 
arrest him without a warrant. If you get the right man, it is well : the 
law will not only sustain but applaud you. But if you get the wrong 



SPEECH AT HAZLEHURST. 597 

man, it is bad : the law not only withdraws its countenance, but mulcts 
you in damages. 

If the slave-trade is to be regarded as piracy, Great Britain's present 
position is right. If it is not, then the law which so denounces it ought 
to be repealed. 

I should be glad, if time permitted, to discuss the question of slavery 
in its local aspects, and show how it elevates the white man. How, 
instead of degrading the non-slaveholder in the social scale, as has been 
asserted, it elevates him ; and how, instead of reducing the wages of his * 
labor, it increases them. I should be glad to show how it is that in all 
non-slaveholding communities capital competes directly with labor, and 
why it is that exactly the reverse is true in all communities where 
slavery exists. But all this I must reserve for some other occasion. 

I have been asked to state my views as to the future of the Union, 
and I will do so with the utmost freedom and frankness. In twenty 
years I have not changed my opinion as to the great fact, that you must . 
give up the Union, or give up slavery. That they can and ought to 
exist together in harmony, and be, as they have been, mutually benefi- 
cial, is certainly true; but that they trill not, is, in my judgment, just 
as true. The sentiment of hostility to the South and its institutions, is , 
widening and deepening at the North every day. Those who tell you 
otherwise are themselves deceived, or they wilfully deceive you. Twenty 
years ago, this sentiment was confined to a few fanatics ; now it per- 
vades all classes, ages, and sexes of society. It is madness to suppose 
that this tide is ever to roll back. To-day, Seward, the great arch spirit « 
of Abolitionism, marshals his hosts. In twenty years he has not changed 
his plan. He means to bring the Union, with all its power and patron- 
age, its prestige and its glory, into direct conflict with slavery. The 
day of battle cannot much longer be delayed. When it comes, when • 
the power of the Union is turned against slavery, when its arm is raised 
to strike down the South, I know not where other men will stand, but 
for myself, I will stand where I have always stood, on the side of 
slavery and the South. 

I was raised in awe, in almost superstitious reverence of the Union. 
But. if the Union is to be converted into a masked battery for assailing 
my property and my domestic peace, I will destroy it if I can ; and if 
this cannot be done by a direct assault, I would resort to sapping and " 
mining. This is plain talk. I mean that you should understand me, 
and that others shall know where I stand. Now, as in 1850, I do not 
fear the consequences of disunion. I do not court it, but I do not 
dread it. On the 30th of January of that year I said : — 

" The South afraid to dissolve the Union — why should we fear ? Are we not able 
to take care of ourselves? Shall eight millions of people, with more than one hundred 
millions of dollars in annual products, fear to take their position among the nations 
of the earth ? Neither Old England or New England will make war on us — our cot- 
ton bags are our bonds of peace." 

Nearly nine years have passed away, and the convictions of 1850 > 
have been strengthened by each year's experience. 

It is futile, if, indeed, it is not puerile, to attempt a compromise of 
the slavery question. The diiference between the North and South is , 
radical and irreconcilable. Discussion has only served to exasperate 
the feelings of the two sections, and every attempt to adjust their differ- 



598 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

ences by congressional compromise, has but widened the breacli between 
them. In a much-abused speech, pronounced by me at Elwood Springs, 
near Port Gibson, on the 2d of November, 1850, I said : — 

"We are told that our difficulties are at an end ; that, unjust as we all know the 
late action of Congress to have been, it is better to submit, and especially is it better 
since this is to be the end of the slavery agitation. If this were the end, fellow- 
citizens, I miglit debate the question as to whether it would not be the better policy. 
Such is my love of peace, such my almost superstitious reverence for the Union, that 
I might be willing to submit if this was to be the end of our troubles. But I know 
it is not to be the end. * « * * . * 

" Look to the success of the Free-Soilers in the late elections. Listen to the notes 
of preparation everywhere in the Northern States, and tell me if men do not wil- 
fully deceive you when they say that the slavery agitation is over. I tell you, fellow- 
citizens, it is not over." 

I then predicted that the compromise would be observed just so long 
as it suited the purposes of the North to observe it, and no longer. 
Whether that prediction has been verified, I leave to the decision of all 
men of all parties. 

What is there in the future to encourage the South ? The enemy is 
growing stronger every day, that is true. But thanks to the good sense 
of our people, we are becoming more united. The day is not far dis- 
tant when we will stand in the breach as one man, determined to do or 
die in defence of our common heritage. Never within my recollection 
has the South stood so closely united ; and seeing this, I feel encouraged. 
Still, I would now, as in 1850, give Cromwell's advice to his army: 
"Pray to the Lord, but keep your powder dry." 

I have undiminished confidence in the soundness of Democratic theo- 
ries ; and I believe now, as I have always believed, that the Democratic 
party is the only national party on which the country can rely. Indeed, 
since the disruption of the old Whig party, it is the only one which has 
a decent claim to nationality. But I will not so far stultify myself as 
to say that all who claim to be National Democrats are worthy of confi- 
dence. I utterly repudiate the men of seven principles — the five loaves 
and two fishes men — the men who expect a great deal of bread for very 
little Democracy. I will fellowship with no such Swiss guard. They 
■will be at Charleston, and if they carry the day, it will be tima for 
honest men to retire. 

It is expected of us, I suppose, that we are to go into the convention 
at Charleston for a presidential candidate for 1860. I am not over- 
hopeful of good results following from that convention, and yet I am 
willing to go in and try what can be done. That we should get a sound 
platform and sound candidates, I do not question. That we shall elect 
our candidate is probable — that we shall sustain him after he is elected, 
is not probable. National Democracy has not the cohesive pc^r-it had 
in the days of Jackson, else General Pierce would not have been sacri- 
ficed at the North for doing his duty, and Mr. Buchanan would not now 
be abandoned for standing square on the platform of his party. Still, 
so long as they give us sound platforms and sound candidates upon 
them, I do not see what better we can do than meet them in national 
convention. 

A few partial friends have connected my humble name with the presi- 
dency ; I thank them for their kindness, but I am not deceived as to my 
true position. No man entertaining the sentiments I have expressed to- 



PACIFIC RAILROAD. 599 

day, can be elected President of the United States. 1 never doubted that 
a camel might go through the eye of a needle, but I am wholly incredu- 
lous as to any man who entertains sound views on the subject of South- 
ern rights, ever being crowded into the presidential chair. He may 
entertain sound views, and keep them to himself, or he may so disguise 
them in general verbiage, as to make them palatable. But, if his views 
are sound, and he expresses them with the boldness of a freeman, and 
the independence of a man, he seals his prospects for ever. 

No, no ; I have no silly aspirations for the presidency, and, therefore, 
have no occasion to suspect that my judgment has been warped by 
ambition — I am ambitious, but my ambition does not lead me towards 
the presidency. That is the road to apostacy ; I would rather be the 
independent senator that I am, and speak for Mississippi, than be 
president, and be subject to the call of every demagogue, and compelled 
to speak for a heterogeneous mass, with as many opinions as the rainbow 
has hues. Whenever the South can no longer rely on the National 
Democracy, and feels that the time has come for her to go it alone, I 
will stand for her, if she can find no son more worthy of her confidence. 
But I will never consent to compromise my principles, or flatter Free- 
Soilers for their votes. When it comes to that, I stand out. 



PACIFIC RAILROAD. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 20, 1859, ON THE 

PACIFIC RAILROAD. 

Before the vote is taken, I have a word or two to say, but I have no 
intention of making a speech. I understand, from the course which the 
debate has taken, that the constitutionality of this measure is made to 
depend on its necessity for the purposes of military defence. I yield 
very much to that argument ; but I have resting on my own mind a very 
clear and distinct conviction that when you undertake to justify an 
appropriation from the national treasury, on the ground of necessity, 
that necessity must be direct and absolute, or it must be so probable that 
in the mind of a reasonable man, it is likely to occur. A remote and 
contingent necessity does not, and in my judgment cannot, justify the 
exercise of a doubtful constitutional power. 

And, sir, in addition to this suggestion, I have to say that where ap- 
propriations are made on the ground of necessity, they must not exceed 
the occasion which requires the exercise of the power. If there be a 
direct and immediate necessity for building this road as a means of 
national defence, I agree that Congress can make the appropriation; but 
I believe no one has pretended that any direct or immediate necessity 
does exist. Then is there such a contingent necessity as, in the judg- 
ment of the Senate, is so likely to occur, that you are called upon to 
make the appropriation ? I think all will admit that if there be a con- 
tingent necessity at all, it is very remote and very uncertain. It may 
occur next year, or ten years hence, or it may never occur. But, ad- 
mitting that there may be a remote contingency — a remote probability 



600 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

that the road will be necessary — does the amount called for to construct 
the work bear any reasonable proportion to that remote and uncertain 
contingency ? I have said heretofore, and now repeat, that if every 
necessity which gentlemen may imagine has arisen or can arise, justifies 
the exercise of this power, I do not see where it is to stop ; I do not see 
but that one may suppose there is a necessity for building a railroad to 
any point that you may name, for military defence, and therefore you 
have, according to the argument, the power to do it. 

In this case I see no direct or immediate necessity ; I see no remote 
necessity which justifies me in giving a vote in favor of this proposition ; 
and, if I did, I should still say that the amount of money required to 
construct the road is of too great magnitude to justify me in giving it 
to meet the necessities of the case. 

My friend from Missouri [Mr. Green], the other day, Avanted to know 
of me where I got the power to construct a fortification. Well, sir, I 
will take the fortification in Virginia which he mentioned — Fortress 
Monroe. It is necessary for the defence of the town of Norfolk v/hich 
lies above it. But suppose the town of Norfolk was worth $10,000,000, 
and it would require $100,000,000 to construct the fortification : then 
I would rather give up the town than construct the fortification ; because 
the expenditure would so far exceed the necessity of the case as not to 
justify me, under the Constitution, in voting for it. That is, if I put the 
case as a mere matter of dollars and cents. I agree to the proposition that, 
wherever an appropriation is necessary, absolutely necessary to the 
national defence, you must have the power to make it : but I see no such 
absolute necessity in this case. I go further, and admit that, if the 
necessity is so probable that by applying a just and fair discrimination 
to the case, it appears to be a necessity likely to arise, then you may 
make the appropriation, provided the amount of money asked for does 
not greatly exceed the necessity of the case. But I cannot agree that 
every supposed, ideal, or imaginary necessity, justifies appropriations 
from the national treasury. 

And now, Mr. President, upon another point; that is,'the point of 
difference between the powers of the government over the territories and 
the states. I have stated heretofore, and now reiterate, I hope more 
distinctly than I have expressed it before, because I want to be under- 
stood on the point, that if it be admitted that Congress has the power to 
make an appropriation to construct a railroad in a territory, I know of 
no reason why Congress cannot make appropriations to construct rail- 
roads in the states, except this, that by going into the states you violate 
the sovereignty of the states. I hold that a state is the guardian of its 
own sovereignty ; and if the state, by memorial, expressed through a con- 
vention of its people, invites the federal government to make a road, I do 
not see but that the whole difficulty is avoided. You do not go into the 
state according to the argument, simply because, in doing so, you violate 
its sovereignty. If the state waives the right, it seems to me the argu- 
ment is avoided. I strike the question lower down. I deny the right 
of the federal government to exercise this sort of authority over the 
treasury except upon the grounds that I have already stated — that is, a 
necessity immediate or so proximate that a prudent man would prepare 
to meet it. I deny your right as much to construct an unnecessary road 
in a territory, as I deny it to construct an unnecessary road in the 



PACIFIC RAILROAD. 601 

States. And I assert that the necessity must be immediate and pressing, 
and not remote and contingent ; and that the appropriation must bear 
some proper relation to the necessity of the case. 

I content myself with asserting that if you have the power to make 
appropriations for the construction of a railroad in a territory, you have 
the same power to make appropriations to construct railroads in a state, 
when you have the consent of the state expressed through its sovereignty. 
I yielded the point the other day, as a debatable one at least, that the 
legislature and governor cannot speak for the sovereignty of a state ; but 
if the state, in convention, shall make it a part of her organic law, that 
a railroad may be constructed within her limits, then, for the life of me, 
I cannot see how the sovereignty of the state is outraged by the federal 
government doing that which the sovereign invites her to do. I do not 
see that the rights of my state are violated at all by your doing what 
she, speaking through a convention of her people, invites you to do. 

It has been suggested, in the course of the argument, that the consent 
of the state could neither enlarge nor diminish the powers of the federal 
government. That is simply a truism. Indeed it cannot, in any proper 
sense. And yet, it is true, you may do that within the limits of a state, 
with the consent of the state, which you cannot do without it. 

It has been said, in the course of the argument, that the federal 
government must have the assent of the state before you can establish 
arsenals, dock-yards, navy-yards, &c., witliin the limits of the state. 
That is true — and it is just as true that you cannot do these things with- 
out the consent of the state. I dare say that if railroads had been known 
when the Constitution was established, they would have been included in 
the same catalogue. Railroads belong to the same class as navy-yards, 
dock-yards, arsenals, &c.; and if they had been known at the day when 
the Constitution was framed, I dare say they would have been enume- 
rated. I put railroads in the same category with dock-yards, arsenals, &c. 
You can establish a navy-yard within a state, by the consent of the state ; 
so you may establish an arsenal with the consent of the state ; and so if 
you have the power to make the appropriation at all for a railroad ; if 
you have the power over the treasury which authorizes you to make the 
appropriation, I hold that you can make it as well in a state, with the con- , 
sent of the state, as in a territory. But I say again, I strike the ques- 
tion lower down, and deny the power to use the national treasury for this 
purpose, except in such cases as I have named ; that is, in cases of direct 
or immediate necessity, not in cases of remote and contingent necessity ; 
and then your appropriation must be confined to the necessity of the 
case ; and if it exceeds it, I hold it is as much a violation of the Constitu- 
tion to make the appropriation as to usurp a clear and distinct power. 

It may be necessary to have a navy ; but will anybody pretend that 
because you must necessarily have a navy, you can therefore build a 
thousand ships ? Would not that be a violation of the Constitution — as 
clear a»trespass on the power given you as would be the usurpation of a 
distinct right? You have the right to have an army; but suppose you 
should propose to band the whole population into an army : would not 
that be a violation of the Constitution, as much as to usurp any given 
power? I hold that even your granted powers are to be e :ercised with 
due and proper discretion, and with proper regard to the necessity of the 
case in hand. 



602 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

This is all, Mr. President, that I have to say on those two points. My 
friend from Georgia [Mr. Iverson] said, a little while ago, that he reite- 
rated and reaffirmed all that he had said the other day upon a question 
rather remote to this, but which some how or other came to be lugged 
into the debate. I shall not avail myself of my privilege on this occasion 
to discuss the question thus incidentally drawn into the discussion ; and 
yet I do for some special reasons, perhaps special to myself, feel some 
anxiety at no distant day to express my views on the point thus inci- 
dentally introduced. I content myself at present with saying that having 
listened to the speech of the senator from Georgia, I endorse it cordially, 
warmly, and enthusiastically. He spoke like a true Southron as he is, 
upon all that related to the powers of the government over the terri- 
tories. While I do not choose to embarrass this debate by giving any 
views of my own, I feel justified in saying this much in justice to my 
friend and to myself. On some other bill, and when the point shall be 
more germane, I shall express my opinions as to the rights, powers, and 
duties of the federal government in regard to the territories. 



GEANT OF LAND TO THE SEYEEAL STATES 
FOE AGEICULTUEAL COLLEGES. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 7, 1859, ON 
HOUSE BILL MAKING GRANTS OF LANDS TO THE STATES FOR 
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 

Mr. President : I do not intend to prolong this debate, for I 
am exceedingly anxious to proceed to the consideration of another 
question. My vote will not be recorded in favor of this bill ; because, 
in my opinion, the judgment of the people whom I have the honor to 
represent is opposed to it. I feel none of that earnest opposition, how- 
ever, to the bill which has been expressed by other gentlemen coming 
from the same section from which I came. I have seen in it none of 
those enormities which other gentlemen have seen, and have attempted 
to point out. I have not perceived that the rights of the states are to 
be violated by the passage of the bill. I do not understand that the 
rights of the states are violated by giving to each, to be enjoyed in 
severalty, a portion of that which belongs to all of them in the aggre- 
gate, or setting apart to each, to be enjoyed in severalty, a portion of 
that which belongs to all in the aggregate. 

I have not seen, in other regards, that there will be in the passage of 
the bill that palpable violation of the Constitution which my friend from 
Alabama attempted to point out this morning. The bill as I understand 
it, does not assume, upon the part of the federal government, the right 
to go into the states and take cognisance of the subject of agriculture. 
It no more does it, than did Congress, in passing the several acts 
enumerated by the senator from Tennessee, assume jurisdiction over 
the questions named in those acts. When five hundred thousand acres 
of land were given to my state for the purposes of internal improvement, 
the federal government did not assert its right to go into that state and 



GRANT OF LAND FOR AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 603 

make internal improvements. When a much larger quantity was given 
for the purposes of swamp drainage, Congress did not assert its power 
to drain swamps. When quantities of land have been given to the states 
for other purposes, Congress has not asserted its jurisdiction, in my 
opinion, over those subjects. 

Congress, as I understand the case, has said this : "We have no power 
to make internal improvements in the states ; but you have ; we have 
the power to dispose of the public lands, to give thern away; we think 
internal improvements and the building of railroads a good object to be 
accomplished within your limits ; we cannot do it ; but we will give you 
so much land if you will do it." So in reference to the passage of the 
swamp land bills. Congress admitting that it had no right to go into a 
state and drain the swamps — said, in effect, to the states: "You have 
the right to drain swamps ; we think it ought to be done ; we have the 
power to give the land ; we give it for that object, if you will thus apply 
it." Congress now says, or proposes to say, in reference to this matter : 
" We have no right to erect agricultural colleges within your limits ; you 
have ; we think agricultural colleges ought to be erected ; if you will 
do it then we will give so much land to aid in the object." 

That brings us back to the question, whether Congress has power to 
give the land for any- purpose ? I maintain that it has ; that the power 
to dispose of the land necessarily carries with it the right to give it, or 
else the English language is meaningless. The only limitation, in my 
judgment, upon the power to give, is, that you shall not give it for a 
purpose prohibited by the Constitution. Certain salaries are fixed by 
law ; and they can neither be increased nor diminished during the 
incumbency of the oflScer. You cannot give the public land to that 
officer, as an officer ; because, in doing that, you would violate one of 
the prohibitions of the Constitution. 

But I have seen no justification for any of these land grants for rail- 
road purposes, for general purposes of internal improvements, for school 
purposes, or anything else, unless it be found in that clause of the Con- 
stitutiou which gives Congress the power to dispose of the public lands ; 
"dispose of," meaning to give, to sell, to lease, to rent. Then, when 
they give it for a particular object, they do not take cognisance of the 
object. The state retains its authority over the question, and is simply 
aided by Congress in doing that which it has the right to do. 

To illlustrate, sir ; I should have no right to erect a school-house on 
your premises ; but I have the right to dispose of my own money. If 
I think a school-house ought to be erected there, I say to you, the pro- 
prietor : " Erect a school-house, and I will contribute |500 to the 
object." I do not take any jurisdiction ; I exercise no authority over 
your premises. Y^'ou can either accept my proposition or not. I simply 
propose to come in in aid of an object which I believe is right. I have 
no right to go upon any lot in the city of Washington and erect a 
church, because the fee-simple over the soil is not in me ; but, certainly, 
I have the right, if somebody else proposes to erect the church, to give 
my own money, or to give that which I have the right to give, towards 
the object. So I say of this question. While you have no right to 
erect, within the limits of the states, agricultural colleges, or colleges 
of any other kind, you have the right to say to the states : " This power 
is with you ; you have the sovereignty ; and if you, the sovereign, think 



604 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

proper to erect a college, we will do what we can by contributing out of 
that from which we have the right to contribute." 

Thus viewing the question, without attempting to elaborate it, I shall 
vote, as I said before, if I vote at all, against this bill ; but I do it — 
understand me — in deference distinctly to what I understand to be the 
judgment of my own state. The state does not want the advantages 
which this bill holds out to her. I am here to defend her interest, and 
to represent her views ; but I cannot record a vote, contrary to my own 
sense of what ought to be done, without explaining the reasons why I 
do so. 



SLAYEEY IN THE TERRITORIES. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, FEB. 23, 1859, ON THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY IN 

THE TERRITORIES. 

Mr. President : I need hardly say that I shall record my vote 
against this amendment. Ever since I had a matured opinion on the 
subject of introducing new states into the Union, I have been clear in 
my own judgment that no state ought to be admitted without the requi- 
site population to e-ntitle her to at least one representative. I think 
such is the clear meaning of the Constitution. The Constitution re- 
quires you to apportion representation among the states according to 
population. To enable you to do that, it authorizes you to take a census, 
an enumeration of the population, clearly indicating that the representa- 
tion among the states is to be equal according to their respective popu- 
lation. I know of no rule which would entitle a young state to a repre- 
sentative upon this floor with less than the ratio which must not hold 
equally good in reference to an old state. Nay, sir, the reason why you 
should demand it of a new state is stronger than in the case of an old 
, state, because a young state coming in is necessarily entitled to two 
senators. She becomes the equal on this floor of New York, Virginia, 
or any other state, on the instant of her introduction. For these reasons, 
and others which I shall not weary the Senate with giving, I have always 
believed, and still believe, that a state coming into the Union ought to 
have the requisite population to entitle her to one representative, accord- 
ing to the then existing ratio. Now, I think she ought to have ninety- 
three thousand four hundred and twenty, that being the ratio ; but I 
said, when this question was up before, that I should be willing to admit 
Kansas or Oregon, or any other free state, or any other slave state, 
upon that fraction which entitles South Carolina to a representative ; 
but the fraction must be ascertained. You must know what the popula- 
tion is, and to ascertain it you are to do precisely what the Constitution 
authorizes you to do — have a census of the people taken. 

This question is to have a very important bearing upon the next 
presidential contest — this precise question in reference to the manner in 
which you are to dispose of the territory of Kansas. The senator from 
Michigan [Mr. Chandler], the other day, gave us notice that the Repub- 
lican party was going to carry the elections of 1860. Of that he was 



SLAVERY IN THE TEKrJTOHIES. 605 

very confident. Whether he is to prove a true or a false prophet I shall 
not undertake to say ; but 1 content myself" with the hope that, if his 
party shall succeed in the presidential election, it will succeed for the 
vindication of principles. I am equally confident with the honorable 
senator that the party, of which I am a member, will succeed in the 
contest of 1860 ; and, if it does, I want its success to be a success of 
principles, and not of men. However others may feel, I, at least, am 
no spoilsman. I would rather settle one sound principle in a presidential 
contest than secure all the patronage of all the presidents who have ever 
been elected to or retired from the office. The spoils of office, to the 
people whom I represent, are as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. 
They want principle— they want the vindication of great national, sound 
principles. That vindication is necessary to the maintenance of their 
rights in the Union. Without it they cannot live for a year, scarcely 
for an hour. Therefore it is that I express the hope that, if the Repub- 
lican party succeed, they may succeed upon a principle ; and if we 
succeed, I want our success to be the vindication of a principle. I 
neither want to cheat nor to be cheated in the great contest that is to 
come off in 1860 ; and as this precise question, which we are now dis- 
cussing, is to have a most important bearing on that election, I choose 
to give my opinions not only upon the main question, but upon some of 
the questions arising out of it collaterally. 

I say, sir, I neither want to cheat nor to be cheated, and therefore it 
is that I am free to state to gentlemen where I stand, and where the 
people Avhom I represent stand, and then I shall be very glad to hear 
from other gentlemen as to where they stand. 

Mr. President, the Supreme Court of the United States decided, in 
the celebrated Dred Scott case, that slaves were property, and that 
slaveholders had the same right to carry their slave property to the 
territories that any other citizen from any other state, had to carry any 
other kind of property. The venerable Chief Justice declared further, 
that the whole duty of this government towards slave property was to 
protect it. It therefore stands as the judicial exposition of the Consti- 
tution under which we live, that slaves are property ; that we have the 
right to take them to the territories, and have them protected after we 
get them there. If the decision means anything at all, it means that. 
Now, sir, by protection, if the word be not a cheat and delusion, we 
understand adequate protection, sufficient protection. 

Mr. Chandler. Will the senator permit me to ask. him a question ? 

Mr. Brown. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Chandler. I wish to ask the senator from Mississippi, whether, 
if slaves are property under the Constitution, he does not deem that 
they are protected wherever that Constitution exists, in states as well as 
in territories ? 

Mr. Brown. I will come to that. They are protected; but I will 
show the senator that the mere naked Constitution does not afford that 
adequate protection which the nature and description of the property 
requires. The Constitution of itself, unaided by legislation, can no 
more protect slave property than it will protect any other species of 
property. Your ships upon the high seas are entitled to protection 
under the Constitution ; but you aid your Constitution by statutory 
enactments, and, without that aid, the protection would not be efficient 



606 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

or effective. "What I claim, and what the Southern States will claim, 
upon this question, I will state in the spirit of the utmost frankness. 

The judicial decision being such as I have described it, we shall claim 
for our slave property protection in the territories. As I said before, 
by protection, we mean adequate protection — protection suited to the 
nature and description of property to be protected. We all know that 
a law which would protect inanimate property, would not in all cases, 
be sufficient to protect animate property ; that is, a law which micrht 
give very adequate and sufficient protection to a wagon, might not give 
the same sort of protection to a horse. Then, if you superadd to the 
animate property the power of reason, your law again must be adapted 
to that kind of property. Now, the slave partakes of all of these quali- 
ties, the inanimate, the animate, and, adding the power of reason, your 
law must be adapted to the nature of the thing. I mean to be under- 
stood on this question. The Constitution never gave us rights and denied 
us the means of protecting and defending those rights. The Supreme 
Court having decided that we have the right to carry our slaves into the 
territories, and necessarily to have them protected after we get them 
there, they virtually decided that we have a right to call upon somebody 
to give us that protectton, and to make it adequate, to suit it to the 
nature, character, and description of the property to be protected. 

Now, sir, upon whom are we to call ? According to the doctrine of 
non-intervention, our first call is upon the territorial legislature. I 
should, therefore, go to the territorial legislature of Kansas, for instance, 
and say: "Here is my slave property; I demand for it protection, 
adequate and sufficient protection : protection suited to the nature, cha- 
racter, and description of the property." If the territorial legislature 
refuse, then what am I to do? Am I, at that point, to abandon my 
rights, rights guarantied to me by the Constitution, by the Constitution 
as expounded by the Supreme Court? Am I, because Congress has 
chosen to adopt what it pleases to term a party compromise, to abandon 
my constitutional rights ? No, sir ; when that territorial legislature refuses 
protection for my slave property, I mean to come to Congress, and this 
will be my speech to you: " Senators, this territorial legislature is your 
creature. You breathed into it existence ; it could not live an hour but 
under the sunshine of your approval ; I come to tell you that your crea- 
ture is not obeying the Constitution ; that your creature is denying to 
me rights guarantied to me by the sacred charter of our liberties, as 
expounded by the highest judicial tribunal in the land; your creature 
denies me protection for my slave property ; I come to ask you, the mas- 
ter, whether you will grant me that protection;" and I am curious to 
know, in view of the approaching contest, what response I am to have 
to that speech. I know perfectly well that the territorial legislature of 
Kansas will deny protection for my property. However, or by what 
influence prompted to make the declaration, they will declare, as they 
have within the last three weeks, that they will not only afford no pro- 
tection, but that they will withdraw protection, as far as they can, and 
substitute unfriendly legislation in its stead. Is it expected of me and 
my people that we are to fold this injustice to our bosoms, and cherish 
it becomes it comes stamped, " accept this, or break up the Democratic 
party." 

I ask northern gentlemen whether they would be quite content, under 



SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES. 607 

the same sort of compromise between conflicting elements in party, to 
have their right to call upon this government to protect their mercantile 
marine frittered away. Your ships go out upon the high seas, they are 
assaulted by enemies, attacked by pirates, and what do you do ? If the 
law be insufficient, you come to Congress and invoke its aid. When you 
ask that, would you be content, senators from the North, to be told, " we 
have agreed to non-intervention on this question ; we cannot give you 
any protection." You would say, as I say to-day, " Senators, the obli- 
gation is imposed upon you ; not by a party compromise, but by the 
Constitution of your country, to protect this property, and you must do 
it. So I say in reference to slavery in the territories; the obligation is 
upon Congress : the Supreme Court has already decided that we are 
entitled to protection. The territorial legislature, I repeat it again, 
which denies it to us, is your creature ; you made it, and you can 
unmake it. It lives upon your breath ; it exists by your forbearance ; 
and I, for one, am not content to be thus compromised out of my con- 
stitutional rights — rights secured to me by my forefathers, and guaran- 
tied by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. I 
agreed to non-intervention ; but I never agreed, after we had established 
rights by the decision of the Supreme Court, we w^ere to be deprived of 
those rights by a congressional compromise. If, as the Supreme Court 
has decided, the obligation is upon you to protect my property, no agree- 
ment among politicians or parties can discharge you from that obligation. 
I have heard it said, Mr. President, that when w^e come here with 
a bill asking protection for our slave property in the territories, the 
dominant party of the North w^ill take the other side of the proposition, 
and abolish slavery in the territories. Impotent threat ! Impotent appeal 
to cowardly fears! Have you any higher right to abolish slavery, 
because I ask protection for it, than you would have if I asked nothing? 
Does the mere fact of my coming and asking for my constitutional rights 
open the door to you to destroy my rights ? Suppose the senator from 
Massachusetts, who represents a very important commercial interest, a 
very important commercial martne, should come and ask you to amend 
and fortify your laws in reference to the coastwise trade ; and should 
tell you that there were pirates in the Gulf, seizing his ships, plundering 
the cargo, and murdering the crews, scuttling the vessels; and suppose 
he came with a bill asking protection ; I want to know if that would 
confer upon you any right to turn pirate yourselves, scuttle his ship, 
murder the crew, and steal the cargo ? No, sir. If it were a case fairly 
stated and honestly fortified, you would say, " the obligation is upon us 
to give adequate and sufficient protection to this property, and we will 
do it by the naval and military power of the government;" and have I, 
sir, less right to demand protection for my slave property in the terri- 
tories ? and ought I to be content to take less ? If I come and ask you 
to discharge your constitutional obligation, can you any more turn pirate 
in my case than you could turn pirate in the case of the senator from 
Massachusetts ? The obligation to protect is one thing ; the power to 
destroy is altogether a different thing. I say, again, the threat that, 
if we come and demand protection for our slave property, you will take 
the converse of the proposition, and pass anti-slavery laws, passes me 
by as the idle wind. It is an impotent threat ; and it appeals to cow- 
ardice and the meanest passions of the southern people. 



608. ALBERT G. BROWN. 

. I give you warning now, that if Kansas legislate in a spirit of hosti- 
lity to slavery, the state which I represent, and, in my opinion, a vast 
majority of the southern people, will come to Congress, and demand of 
you, in obedience to the written Constitution as expounded by the illus- 
trious men who adorn the supreme bench of the United States, that you 
annul their legislation, and substitute instead laws giving adequate and 
sufficient protection to slave property. When you have done that, you 
will have discharged your duty, and your Avhole duty ; and, when you 
do less, you are derelict in your duty, under the Constitution of the 
United States. 

When we came into this Union, Mr. President, we came as equals. 
Mine was not one of the original states ; but the act which admits her, 
admits her on a footing of equality with the original states. Therefore, 
she stands in the Union to-day, claiming all the rights, all the privileges, 
all the immunities, which belong to any one of the sisterhood ; and, much 
as I honor her, I would never plant my foot on her soil again, so help 
me God, if she consented to take less than that. 

We ask nothing which we are not willing to give. We ask nothincr 
that we are not willing to yield. Come and demand protection for your 
property, upon the high seas or in the territories, and I shall be ready 
to give it; not with stinted measure, but I will give you that sort of 
protection which will secure you in the peaceable, quiet, and happy 
enjoyment of your property. When I come as an equal, and demand 
the same thing, I want to know whether you will measure to me that 
equal justice for which, I tell you, I have always been ready, and am 
still ready, and shall remain ready to mete out to you. 

I hope that on these points I am understood. I do not wish to weary 
the Senate with a long speech on this or any other question. I know 
how speedily the hours fly, and how impatient the Senate is to transact 
its business ; but this, I repeat again, is an element which must enter 
into the next presidential contest; you cannot keep it out; and before 
we enter on the threshold of that contest, it is right for all who feel as 
I do, that they neither want to cheat nor be cheated — to understand 
where they are. I think I understand the position of the senator from 
Illinois [Mr. Douglas], and I dissent from it. If I understand him, 
he thinks that a territorial legislature may, by non-action, or by un- 
friendly action, rightfully exclude slavery. I do not think so. But if 
territorial legislation is to be the end of legislation, he is right. If 
your doctrine of non-intervention shall be carried to the extent of allow- 
ing a territorial legislature, by non-action or unfriendly action, to annul 
a decision of the Supreme Court, then I say to the Senate and to the 
world that the senator from Illinois is right; by non-action, by 
unfriendly action within the limitations of constitutional power, the 
territorial legislature can exclude slavery. But it is a question 
of power; not of right. What I want to know is, whether you will 
interpose against power and in favor of right ; or whether you will 
stand by, dissenting in words from the senator from Illinois, and 
yet, for all practical purposes, sustaining him by refusing to interpose 
your authority to overthrow the unconstitutional and tyrannical acts of 
your creature — the territorial legislature. The senator thinks the legis- 
lature has the right, by non-action or unfriendly action, to exclude me, 
with my slaves. You tell me you do not think so. But what matters 



SLAVEKY IN THE TERRITORIES. 609 

it to me what you think, if you will do nothing to secure me in my 
rights ? If the territorial legislature refuses to act, will you act ? If it 
pass unfriendly acts, will you pass friendly ? If it pass laws hostile to 
slavery, will you annul them, and substitute laws favoring slavery in 
their stead? If you cannot give affirmative answers to these questions, 
I care not a button for the difference between you and the senator from 
Illinois. We have a right of protection for our slave property in the 
territories. The Constitution, as expounded by the Supreme Court, 
awards it. We demand it ; and we mean to have it. 

I have already said that the Constitution, unaided by legislation, gives 
us the right to protection, but it does not give us the protection itself. 
It does not give us the power to punish those who trespass on our pro- 
perty. It does not give us the power to vindicate it in any manner, 
shape, or form. It gives us rights, but they are naked rights ; and, until 
they are supported by legislation, they amount to nothing but naked 
rights. Non-action goes a great way to exclude slave property from a 
territory — further, perhaps, than to exclude any other species of property ; 
and yet it -is true that no property can exist without laws to protect it. 
The Constitution may give the right, but the law must give the remedy. 

But, sir, I admit, as I have done on former occasions ; I admit, as I 
did in the House of Representatives, and, I think, in the Senate, that 
the legislative power, wherever it may be lodged, must necessarily regu- 
late the relations between master and slave. Now, the precise point at 
which the regulating power must stop, is not very easily defined. And 
then we must all admit that the power of taxation must be in the leo-is- 
lature. At what point the power shall be exercised so as to become 
unconstitutional, would be very difficult for a court to determine. Then, 
I say, that legislating in an unfriendly spirit upon the point of taxation, 
and upon the power of regulating the relations between master and slave, 
added to non-action — non-favorable action I mean — slavery would be as 
effectually excluded as if they had said in so many words, "if you brino- 
your slave here, we will set him free." 

I do not want to be misunderstood. If the legislature may tax, at 
what point will the taxing power become unconstitutional? If it may 
regulate, when shall it stop ? If it refuses to act, how will you force it 
to act ? These thoughts suggest to my mind a concurrence with the 
senator from Illinois, that a territorial legislature has the power, not the 
right, to exclude slavery, and therefore my question : when it exercises 
its power without the right, what will you do ? The senator says he will 
do nothing. Other senators from the North — what will you do ? 

I do not care to elaborate the ideas that crowd on my mind. I do not 
care to run off into the collateral idea of the government exercising its 
power to regulate commerce, and doing it in such a way as to break 
down the whole shipping interest at the North. You have a clear and 
distinct right to regulate commerce. At what point your exercise of that 
power would become unconstitutional, it would be a very difficult matter 
for a court to determine. So it is on the other side. I say that the 
senator from Illinois is right to a certain extent ; but he is wrong when 
he comes to another point, and that is, that under the doctrine of non- 
intervention, non-action on the part of the territorial legislature, or 
unfriendly legislation, may drive us from the territories, and we are 
without a remedy. I understand that to be his position, and if so, I 



610 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

dissent from it in toto. We have a remedy. That remedy I have before 
indicated ; but, as I want to impress it on the minds of my northern 
friends, I repeat it. The remedy is, by an appeal to Congress ; by tell- 
ing you " this creature of yours denies us our rights, refuses to give us 
protection for our property, and we come to you, the masters and the 
creators, and ask you to wipe this thing out of existence or force it to 
obey the Constitution of the country." 

I understand from the senator from Illinois, that when I make that 
appeal — that appeal which I and my people will make — he will deny it. 
I understand him, and I dissent from him. And now, sir, I should like 
to know of other senators from the North whether I understand them. 
What will be your response, senators ? Will you respond favorably or 
unfavorably to the inquiry ? When we come and demand that you inter- 
pose and force your creature to do us justice, will you stand by us or will 
you stand against us ? Will you stand by the senator from Illinois, or will 
you stand by me ? Non-action on your part will be more terrible to me 
than non-action on the part of the territorial legislature. What I and 
my people shall ask is action ; positive, unqualified action. Our under- 
standing of the doctrine of non-intervention was, that you were not to 
intervene against us, but I never understood that we could have any 
compromise or understanding here which could release Congress from an 
obligation imposed on it by the Constitution of the United States. If 
the obligation is upon you, and that it is I appeal to the opinions of 
your illustrious judges, then how are you to escape? You may refuse 
to act, you may refuse to discharge the obligation ; but still it is upon 
you, and no agreements not to intervene, I care not by whom they may 
have been made or who may have yielded to them, can release you from 
them. I want to know where we all stand, because I can see, and do 
see, that if the territorial legislature refuses to protect my property, and 
I come and complain to you that it does so refuse, and you turn a 
deaf ear to my complaint, then there is no difference between you and 
the senator, who says in advance, in so may words, that he will not 
respond favorably to my complaint. Indeed, I have more respect for 
a senator who says right out — " I will do nothing," than for one who 
would delude me and my people with hopes never to be realized. 

Mr. President, I may be asked what I would do in the event that my 
appeal for congressional protection turns out futile ? I am prepared to 
tell you what I would do ; but I am not prepared to tell you what the 
South would do. On this point I do not speak for the South; but I 
speak for that portion of the southern people who understand the ques- 
tion as I understand it. I will tell you what they and I will do. I will 
tell you more, what I will advise my people to do. At the very instant 
when you deny to us rights guarantied by the Constitution, as ex- 
pounded by the Supreme Court, and do it by the mere force of numbers, 
my mind will be forced irresistibly to the conclusion that the Constitu- 
tion is a failure, and the Union a despotism. If I cannot obtain the 
rights guarantied to me and my people under the Constitution, as 
expounded by the Supreme Court, then, sir, I am prepared to retire from 
the concern. 

Mr. Clark. Will the honorable senator allow me to ask him one 
question ? 

Mr. Browx. Certainly. 



SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES. 611 

Mr. Clark. I have often heard it said by southern gentlemen that 
they woukl retire from the Union, go out of it. I want to inquire of , 
that gentleman, where is the way, and how he would go ? 

Mr. Brown. When we make up our minds to go, we will find the 
way. We will make it so plain that, if the senator and his abolition 
friends want to pursue us, they will be able to follow the trail. We shall 
not sneak out of the concern ; but, throwing our banner to the breeze, 
we will march out like men, leaving such a trace behind as that our 
enemies may pursue us if they have the courage to do so. 

Now, I suppose, Mr. President, I shall be charged with making extra- 
ordinary demands, and then declaring that, if they were not yielded, 
we would dissolve the Union. I mean no such thing. I simply demand 
that which belongs to me and my people under the Constitution, as 
expou!ided, I repeat again and again, by the Supreme Court. There 
is nothing extraordinary in that. In this connection, I have declared, 
time and time again, that I would yield to similar appeals coming from 
any other quarter, I then ask gentlemen if there is anything extra- 
ordinary in the demand ? 

Mr. PuGH. Will the senator permit me to ask him what his demand 
is ? I wish to hear it. 

Mr. Brown. I wish my friend had listened to me. I am reluctant 
to repeat, and cannot do it even at his solicitation. 

Mr. President, I have not said, if we do not get our constitutional 
rights, we will dissolve the Union. I have said, when our constitutional 
rights are denied us, we ought to retire from the Union. True manhood 
requires it. Why should we remain in ? Why should we remain one 
hour in the Union after the Union denies us rights guarantied by the 
Constitution ? What brought us into it, but to seek and give protection; 
and if you are going to convert the Union into a masked battery from 
behind which to make war on me and my property, in the name of all 
the gods at once, why should I not retire from it ? The ordinary animal 
instincts, to say nothing of human reason, would dictate that course. 
Would not the veriest wild beast flv from a concern if he found it making 
war on him ? You tell us constantly that this Union is to be used for 
the destruction of slave property. Your great leader and champion on 
the other side told us at Rochester, this last fall, that we were to be all 
free or all slave ; all Republican, I suppose, or all Cossack ; and yet we 
are told by gentlemen on the other side of the chamber, in this debate, 
that they contemplate no attack on slavery in the states. I know that 
that declaration is not founded in sincerity ; I know that you do con- 
template attacking slavery in the states. The senator from New York 
[Mr. Seward], in his Rochester speech, forshadowed the policy of his party. 
When he speaks, the whole party speaks. He speaks not for himself; 
but he speaks for more than half a million of followers. When Napoleon 
issued his orders, it was never necessary to inquire what the army thought. 
The array thought and did as Napoleon thought and told them to do. 
When the senator from New York speaks, he speaks for the Republican 
party. Other gentlemen may dissent if they please. They may say we 
do not agree to this. So Napoleon's field marshals may have said, " we 
think the order is bad, but we obey it ;" and they dared not do otherwise. 
So with you. When your great Napoleon points out the way, you have 
to follow it ; you dare not disobey. You may grumble and growl, and 



612 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

say you dissent, and throw obstacles in the Avay, and get deposed for 
doing so ; but in the end you will have to fall into the line and march 
after the banner of the great Napoleon of your party. I thank the 
senator from New York, not for the sentiments of the speech, for those 
I most heartily, and from the inmost recess of my soul, despise, but I 
thank him for the manliness displayed in making the speech. He spoke 
out that which he and his followers do most honestly feel and think, that 
slavery is ultimately, through the agency of the federal government, to 
be overthrown in all the Southern States. That is the issue we have to 
meet if the Union lasts, and no honest man ought to disguise it. 

And seeing this, those of us who are for the hour on watch should ill 
discharge our duty if we did not sound the alarm that danger was ap- 
proaching. Surrounded by difficulties and dangers of this sort, I do not 
want to stumble into the presidental contest of 1860 without knowing 
where we stand. All this Kansas difficulty could have been avoided if 
there had been just a very little amount of firmness, and I may say 
honesty, at Cincinnati. Now, sir, I took the proposition there, borrowed 
from the report of the senator from Illinois, that no state ought to be 
admitted into the Union with a less population than ninety-three thousand 
four hundred and twenty. I ofi'ered it, and it was rejected ; and that 
meaningless nonsense put into the platform, which stands there now, that 
no state ought to be admitted without a sufficient population to entitle it 
to one representative. What is a sufficient population? It all looks 
well enough on the face of the paper, but when you come to analyze it, 
it is miserable nonsense. It was not adopted by accident ; it was done 
by design. My proposition, which meant something, which was designed 
to put the principle of introducing new states on a solid basis, was re- 
jected, and the convention substituted a proposition that new states must 
have a sufficient population. One man says five thousand is sufficient; 
another thinks fifty thousand sufficient; and I think nothing less than 
ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty sufficient ; and when you 
come to vote on it, you find no two men agreeing. If my proposition 
had been incorporated into the Democratic platform, we should have 
stood together now ; Kansas would never have applied ; because she would 
have been advertised through the dominant party here, at least, and 
through the President of our choice, that, until she showed the popula- 
tion, she could not get into the Union. I do not want any more such 
platforms. I want, in the next presidential election, that we shall know 
where we are, what we are, and where we stand. I would rather see the 
Democratic party sunk, never to be resurrected, than to see it successful 
only that one portion of it might practise a fraud on another. If we 
agree, then let us stand together like honest men. If we disagree, then 
let us separate like honest men. 

Mr. President, very many other thoughts crowd on my mind in this 
connection ; but, if I am understood, I have said all that I care to say. 

Mr. Wade. I wish to remind the senator, before he takes his seat, 
that I believe he has not answered the question of the senator from 
Michigan ; and as the senator, I believe, is the Napoleon of that side, I 
wish to understand him also. I want to know whether the same doctrine 
of protection does not as well apply to a state as to a territory ; and if 
it does not, why not ? 

Mr. Brown. That was not the inquiry of the senator from Michigan, 



SLAVERY IN THE TEHRITORIES. 613 

clearly, but I will tell the senator wliy it does not. I utterly, totally, 
entirely, persistently, and consistently, repudiate the whole doctrine of 
squatter sovereignty. By squatter sovereignty I mean territorial sove- 
reignty. I utterly deny that there is any sovereignty in a territory. 

Mr. Wade. I understand the senator to contend, that inasmuch as a 
slave is property in a territory, the owner has a right to be protected in 
the territory. He says he derives that right from the Constitution of 
the United States, and the decision of the Supreme Court under that 
Constitution. That I understand to be the claim. If so, I ask why it 
does not apply as well to a state as to a territory? What is there 
in the Constitution, if it is the supreme law of the land, that prevents 
its operating in a state to the same extent as in a territory? 

Mr. Brown. I hold, Mr. President, that each state is sovereign 
within its own limits ; and that each for itself can establish or abolish 
slavery for itself. 

Mr. Wade. Do I understand the senator that state sovereignty 
dominates over the Constitution of the United States, in any instance, 
or can do so? 

Mr. Brown. If the Constitution, in terms, guarantied slavery in the 
states ; in other words, if the states had surrendered to the federal 
government the power to maintain slavery within their respective limits, 
then, as a matter of course, the obligation would have been upon Con- 
gress to do it; but the extent of the guarantee is not that. The 
guarantee is, that you shall surrender fugitive slaves. 

Mr. Wade. I do not wish to interrupt the senator ; but I believe the 
Dred Scott decision makes no distinction between this right in a state 
and in a territory; but if it does, I should like to know from any lawyer 
why it does? 

Mr. Brown. I shall not undertake to discuss that question at large, 
because it is not involved in the controversy. The Supreme Court were 
simply dealing with a territory; and I speak of the decision as I find it. 
No such hypothetical case as that presented by the senator from Ohio 
has arisen, or probably ever will arise ; but if it does, and the Supreme 
Court think proper to decide it, they will doubtless give sound reasons 
for the decision one way or the other. It is no business of mine to 
foreshadow what will be their decision on a point never presented, and 
never likely to be presented ; but, Mr. President, if nobody else wants 
to interrogate me, I apologize for having consumed nearly three-quarters 
of an hour of the time of the Senate, when I know that every minute is 
of vast importance ; and I yield the floor. 

Mr. Douglas. But the senator trom Mississippi says he has a right 
to protection. The owner of every other species of property may say 
he has a right to protection. The man dealing in liquors may think 
that, inasmuch as his stock of liquors is property, he has a right to 
protection. The man dealing in an inferior breed of cattle, may°think 
he has a right to protection ; but the people of the territory may think 
it is their interest to improve the breed of stock by discrimination against 
inferior breeds ; and hence they may fix a higher rate of taxation on the 
one than on the other. 

Mr. Brown. The senator from Illinois now makes a point which 
enables me to illustrate what I mean. I hold that the territorial legis- 
lature of Kansas — that being the territory immediately involved in this 



614 ALBERT G. BROWN. 

discussion — has no right to enact the Maine liquor law. That is an act 
of sovereignty. It has the right to say that liquors carried into the 
territory shall be so used as that they shall not corrupt the public morals 
nor endanger the public safety ; but the power of .prohibition does not 
belong to a tei-ritorial legislature. So I say in reference to slave pro- 
perty. As I said in my opening remarks this morning, while I demand 
justice, I will do justice. I hold that a territorial legislature has the 
right to regulate the relation between master and slave in such a manner 
that the master shall not permit the slave to endanger the public safety 
or corrupt the public morals. That is what I mean by the power to 
regulate ; and not seeing the point at which a court could intervene and 
arrest this power if it were abused, I said it never would, or rarely ever, 
present a case which we could get before the court and upon which we 
could demand its judgment. By this I understood the senator from 
Illinois to mean unfriendly legislation ; that in the exercise of its power 
to regulate the relation between master and slave, it could act with such 
severity as effectually to exclude slavery as though it were a constitu- 
tional inhibition. That is what I meant. 

Again, in reply to Mr. PuGii, Mr. Brown said : — 
The senator from Ohio read an extract from a speech of mine, which 
he seemed to rely upon to sustain him in his position that I was incon- 
sistent to-day with what I had said on a former occasion. When that 
speech was made, the main point in controversy was as to whether we 
had the right to carry our slave property to the territories, and have it 
protected there. To that point I spoke. That point I maintained then, 
as I maintain to-day ; we were willing to submit to the decision of the 
Supreme Court. We have submitted the question, and it has been 
decided in our favor. I did not mean to be understood then, nor will I 
be understood now, that I am willing to submit to the Supreme Court on 
points which you can never bring before the court. The non-action of 
the territorial legislature can never be brought before the Supreme 
Court. Unfriendly legislation within the limitations of the Constitution 
can never be brought before the Supreme Court. Non-action and that 
sort of unfriendly legislation, I have maintained to-day, would as effec- 
tually exclude us as positive action. Whatever you can get before the 
Supreme Court fairly and justly, I am willing to submit to them, and 
abide by their decision ; but, of course, I am not willing to be ruled out 
upon points which you never can get before the court. Suppose the 
legislature does not act at all, how am I to have my remedy before the 
Supreme Court ? Can I get a mandamus ? Everybody knows I cannot. 
That is a form by which I am excluded. Then, suppose they act in 
an unfriendly spirit within the limitations of the Constitution; how am 
I to get such a case before the Supreme Court ? If they legislate under 
the taxing power, as I pointed out this morning, and under the power to 
regulate the relation between master and slave ; how am I to get such 
a case before the Supreme Court ? I never can. I never meant to say 
I would stand only upon the decisions of the Supreme Court. I Avill 
stand upon them so far as they are rendered ; and I maintain before the 
senator from Ohio now, that I stand where I stood when I made that 
speech — upon the decisions of the Supreme Court; but I could not 
stand upon decisions never rendered, and which never can be rendered. 

THE END. 



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